As one of series of activities to support the event of Indonesia's G-20 Presidency, the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) will hold a Research and Innovation Initiative Gathering (RIIG) as a side event to enhance, intensify, and strengthen research and innovation collaboration by sharing facilities, infrastructure, and funding among the G20 member countries. The 1st RIIG which will specifically discuss Biodiversity Utilization to Support Green and Blue Economy will be held on Wednesday, 13 April 2022 in Jakarta.
Jakarta - 12 April 2022. There are two main agenda priorities in the RIIG that will be organized by BRIN. First, improvement of research and innovation collaboration through sharing facilitation, infrastructure and funding. Second, use of biodiversity to support the Green & Blue Economy. Head of BRIN, Laksana Tri Handoko, said that the background of selection of these two priority themes at RIIG is the desire to establish an open platform that can serve as bridging the G20 members and at the same time to achieve a common understanding among members that can realize the goals of beneficial to the world of research and innovation.
Handoko said, at this G20 Presidency, Indonesia took the initiative to continue the RIIG which was previously initiated by Italy in the previous G20 meeting. "At this G20, RIIG will focus on awareness and make an agreement on how we collaborate to utilize biodiversity based on research collaboration, infrastructure sharing, and funding on an equal basis," said Handoko.
According to him, based on experience in handling the Covid-19 pandemic which has lasted almost three years, collaboration on biodiversity research and its utilization plays a very important role. "In fact, so far, biodiversity is still managed by each party," he said further.
"The presence of BRIN with its existing resources is able to represent Indonesia in the utilization of biodiversity on an equal basis with other countries," added Handoko.
Head of BRIN's Earth Science and Maritime Research Organization who concurrently serves as Co-Chair of RIIG, Ocky Karna Radjasa on a separate occasion said that biodiversity is a very important issue. He mentioned that several governments in the world have adopted the digital green & blue economy mix.
"Therefore, use of biodiversity to support the green & blue economy also needs to be linked with a digital platform approach in order to maximize the results to be achieved," he explained. "In addition, capacity building is also needed to improve the capacity and capability of researchers so that they can realize a Research Station that leads to Research Framework, Knowledge Sharing and Technology Transfer," he continued.
Therefore, Ocky emphasized the need for a framework for collaboration among the G20 countries. "This is important because there is a circle that must be coordinated. When we talk about sustainable use of biodiversity, we have to think about how we can protect it not only for the future, but also for our planet because we need a green & blue economy approach," he added.
In addition to the two priority agendas, taking into account the responses, inputs, and interests, at the previous meeting (RIIG preliminary meeting) the G20 member countries proposed several points to be discussed in the next RIIG series in 2022. First, propose a specific, practical, and feasible framework for sharing facilities, funding, data, and infrastructure among the G20 countries, by taking into account data of security issues. In this case, Indonesia will provide a more detailed open platform concept to be discussed at the next RIIG meeting. Second, identify current engagements in marine sciences, whether the RIIG proposal binds the collaboration or can fill the gaps that have not been filled by existing collaborations. And third, sharpen the focus on renewable energy and offer more focused efforts on specific renewable energy sources.
