Indonesia's new capital teams up with Dutch universities on research

 Indonesia’s Nusantara Capital City (IKN) Authority is working with a Dutch university consortium and a local Indonesian university to develop research on sustainable development education as the country builds its new capital, officials said on Saturday.

“This collaboration follows up on a memorandum of understanding on research into sustainable urban development and landscape-based management,” said Myrna Asnawati Safitri, an official at the IKN Authority.

Speaking in Nusantara, Safitri said the authority has signed an MoU with the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) Universities consortium from the Netherlands, which has since attracted strong interest from students, particularly master’s candidates from various academic disciplines, to conduct research related to the development of the new capital.

She said the engagement reflects growing international academic attention on Nusantara, which is being developed in East Kalimantan as a planned, sustainable city and a new center of government activity.

The recent forum also explored wider forms of cooperation, including capacity-building programs, short courses, internships and study opportunities in the Netherlands.

It also served as a learning platform for mostly younger IKN Authority staff from different departments to exchange ideas on future urban planning concepts.

Through the collaboration, the IKN Authority reaffirmed its commitment to positioning Nusantara as an open learning space that encourages research, innovation and leadership development in sustainable urban development for future generations.

Steffen Nijhuis, head of research at the Department of Urbanism at Delft University of Technology and a representative of the LDE Universities consortium, described Nusantara as a global-scale living laboratory for sustainable urban and landscape development.

“We are pleased to be here, as we were invited to directly observe the development of IKN and engage in discussions with young people involved in its planning, development and management,” Nijhuis said.

“I believe the IKN is a living laboratory, not only for Indonesia, but for the entire world,” he added.

Meanwhile, Irawan Wijaya Kusuma, dean of the Faculty of Forestry at Mulawarman University in Samarinda, said the discussion forum provided an important space for knowledge exchange and for strengthening the role of young people in supporting the long-term development of Nusantara.

“In the IKN, we also carry a responsibility to contribute. In the next five to ten years, this responsibility will increasingly be carried by the younger generation, who will continue the development process,” Kusuma said.