Jakarta. A senior government official has clarified that Indonesia’s research budget actually hit Rp 8 trillion ($467 million) this year, dismissing assumptions that the country was “only” willing to set aside Rp 1.7 trillion ($99 million). 

A few weeks ago, the Higher Education Ministry announced that the government would disburse Rp 1.7 trillion into research for 18,215 proposals. Fauzan Adziman, the director-general for research at the ministry, said that Rp 1.7 trillion was not the only money the government would be willing to roll out this year. 

“Our research fund [for 2026] actually totals Rp 8 trillion,” Fauzan said on Monday.

About Rp 3.2 trillion ($186.8 million) had come from the ministry’s budget. The rest are sourced from the LPDP education endowment fund, as well as research programs at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). 

The ministry had recently approved 18,215 out of 104,546 research proposals for the Rp 1.7 trillion funding. These proposals covered a myriad of topics, although the funding was mainly targeted at subjects that align with Indonesia’s key programs, be it food, health, industrial processing, among others. The government at the time said that the programs sought to spur concrete solutions.

Earlier this year, President Prabowo Subianto had promised to raise the research budget by another Rp 4 trillion (roughly $233.5 million) following a meeting with senior officials from Indonesian universities. In other words, this would bring the total research budget to Rp 12 trillion ($700.5 million).

“Mr. President has made several decisions based on the meeting [with the university’s rectors and professors]. The research budget stands at Rp 8 trillion, and that’s equivalent to 0.34% of our state budget.  So he [Prabowo] decided to add another Rp 4 trillion,” State Secretary Praseto Hadi told reporters in mid-January.