How research can support SDGs

Prof. Zuzy Anna as the Director of SDGs Center Unpad was a speaker at a webinar organized by the Unpad Graduate School with the theme How Research Can Support SDGs on Wednesday 15 September 2021.

At the beginning, the speaker gave an overview of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and their achievements. Then it was explained about the importance of improving from the MDGs to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Prof. Zuzy Anna explained that one of the differences between the MDGs and SDGs is the concern regarding justice. Both intra-generation justice which is concerned with the issue of inequality and inter- generation justice which is concerned with the environment. On this occasion, Prof. Zuzy Anna gave one/two examples of important issues from 17 goals. An example is due to Covid-19, between March and September 2020, there was an increase in the national poverty rate from 9.78% to 10.19%, equivalent to an increase in the number of poor people from 26.42 million people to 27.55 million of the total population of 270.2 million which means the loss of three years of achievements in efforts to reduce poverty.

On this occasion, Prof. Zuzy Anna gave suggestions for webinar participants to see a blueprint for the knowledge and innovation ecosystem that could direct the direction of research. There are several challenging sectors such as low social mobility, rapid urbanization, climate change, food security, and others. There are ideas that can be used in research that can refer to this blueprint that is compatible with the SDGs. Furthermore, Prof. Zuzy Anna provides an overview of the comparison of the stages of SDG implementation related to expert literature vs country practice. Regarding the space that has not been fulfilled, research related to SDGs can be related to assessment indicators, benchmarking, needs assessment.

Prof. Zuzy Anna gave an example that the SDG Center Unpad not only conducts research related to SDGs solutions but also helps all processes in the SDGs, especially in the planning process. When the Unpad SDG Center was first established, the team did research and made a national baseline study and was socialized (launched) in Jakarta and was very useful so that Perpress 59 of 2017 appeared. . In addition, there are several other activities such as regional SDG Score research, national and regional SDG Interlinkages, Youth SDGs research.

At the end of his presentation, Prof. Zuzy Anna provides an overview of current research trends, namely SDG 13, 12 and 7. SDG 13 has the highest cited 37% and involves international collaboration. Likewise SDG 12 which has the highest citer of 36%, international collaboration, but unfortunately the research comes from the majority of developed countries.

This webinar is very useful for participants to plan and determine research topics in the future. This webinar is useful as an effort to improve the quality of education in Indonesia that is appropriate and supports the implementation of the SDGs. Therefore, this activity is expected to support the achievement of SDG 4 regarding quality education.

Watch the full video on Youtube https://youtu.be/zfPD3wTkPmw