Building an Innovation Ecosystem in Indonesia through an Academia-Industry Dating Platform

Abstract

The Kedaireka program (Indonesian Sovereignty in Innovation) was a government initiative launched in 2020 by Indonesia's Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology to stimulate industry-academia collaboration and catalyse an innovation ecosystem. The program’s ‘dating’ platform and matching fund instrument sought to accelerate commercialisation of university research and promote durable university–industry linkages. During the program’s active period, Indonesia’s Global Innovation Index in the University–industry R&D collaboration indicator climbed from rank 33 in 2020 to 5 in 2023. Following the program's discontinuation amid governmental restructuring and the ministry's transformation into the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, the question arises whether its course produced a sustainable, institutionalized innovation ecosystem beyond index gains. Drawing on the conceptual literature on innovation ecosystems, this paper argues that Kedaireka is best understood as an important but incomplete institutional intervention. It initiated the creation of networks and incentive structure that allowed measurable collaboration indicators to rise, but fell short of achieving a self-sustaining and institutional embedding of university-industry  relationships characteristic of mature innovation ecosystems. This study contributes to the limited literature on Kedaireka by demonstrating how government-led collaboration programs, despite achieving impressive statistical outcomes, may be a half-done task of creating the endogenous, self-reinforcing innovation networks essential for ecosystem development.