Thinking framework
Indonesia as a developing country is heavily involved in carrying out development of various fields in order to catch what is left behind, to improve economic growth, and to increase even distribution and prosperity. In carrying out development, Indonesia still faces many problems and constraints that are not easy, and thus affect the opportunities accompanying them, in line with socio-economy and politics dynamic development locally, nationally and globally. Problems of poverty, gaps, economic competitive power, institutionalization, and so on are still faced by any development in Indonesia. Apart from that, decentralization and local autonomy, globalization, and free trade also face challenges. However, there are opportunities that can be used to improve the people’s welfare and the development and progress as a country.
The decentralization and local autonomy era nowadays, which is marked with the effectiveness of Law No. 22 / 1999 and later replaced by Law UU No. 32 / 2004 concerning the Regional Government, has played a role and given bigger responsibility to the regions (the government, community, and business world) in conducting governance, development, and people’s empowerment. Therefore, in the process of developing, besides the government, the community’s role, including that of academics through higher education and business, will become greater in directing and determining the policies and programs of development in the regions in order to support the success of national development.
In order to overcome problems and challenges and to make use of the available opportunities in the development, strong commitment and political will from the leaders and authority of this country and support from any element of community including academics from higher education are needed. Therefore, a university as an education institution has a very strategic role in the regional, national and global development. This strategic role is important not only a producer of qualified human resources that have high integrity, but also as agencies of development and change in order to become civil society that are just, prosperous, and well-being..