The 5th IRSA International Institute

The 5th IRSA International Institute is a regular activity organized by Indonesian regional Science Association (IRSA), which is an annual IRSA’s conference activity and biennial for IRSA Institute. At the annual closed meeting held by the board of IRSA’s Center, in June 2013, Bali was elected the host of 2015 IRSA’s conference. With reference to the research and disciplines which were studied in IRSA, then, Department of Economic Development was chosen to be responsible for organizing the 2015 IRSA’s Conference and IRSA Institute.

Pre-Conference: IRSA Institute Training and Workshop

The first Pre-Conference activity of IRSA Institute – Training on Impact Evaluation - held on Saturday, August 1, 2015, on the third floor of BI Building, Faculty of Economics and Business, Udayana University, Denpasar. The event was attended by about 25 participants coming from various institutions either universities, research institutions, and government institution.

The training began with a classroom session delivered by Dr. Robert Sparrow from the ANU- Indonesian Project. For three hours, Dr. Sparrow delivered material on the policy impact evaluation. On the second session (after lunch break) participants were directly invited to discuss some cases in accordance with points delivered previously. On this case study session, participants were divided into three groups, each groups was escorted by some practitioners team of Policy Impact Evaluation including: the Abdul Latief Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPal) and World Bank. Before starting the training, all participants had been delivered the material via online.   

The second Pre-Conference, the second activity of IRSA Institute in 2015, was Big Data workshop, held on the cooperation between Faculty of Economics and Business Udayana University and ANU-Indonesia Project on August 2, 2015 in Campus of Faculty of Economics and Business Udayana University Denpasar. 37 participants coming from such various organization backgrounds as college, research institution, and government institution, .attended the workshop

Taking the theme of “Big Data in Indonesia: Some Initial Discussion,” the activity was divided into two sessions of activities. The first session of “Big Data Utilization” was presented by three speakers namely: Firman Witoelar (Survey Meter), Teguh Pramaono (BPS), and Elan Satriawan (TNP2K and Gadjah Mada University). The second session of “Data Management and Provision” was delivered by three speakers, namely: Vivi Yulaswati (Bappenas), Indira Hapsari (World Bank) and Petrarca Karetji (DFAT).

IRSA Conference: Tourism and Sustainability Regional Development.

The 2015 IRSA’s top event was the two-day conference (August 3-4, 2015) at Sanur Paradise Hotel Denpasar. The number of participants reached 241 participants. The registration process was conducted via online; each participant must create an account first in IRSA’s website.

 The activities of the two-day Conference consist of several activities, among others: the keynote speech session, two sessions of Plenary Session, five sessions of Parallel Session, four sessions of Special Session, and a Poster Session

On Keynote Speech session, Minister of Tourism of the Republic of Indonesia, Arief Yahya, expressed his views regarding to the tourism condition in Indonesia for approximately 30 minutes. Then, continued by presentation of two speakers in plenary session. The first speaker,  Minister for National Development Planning / Head of Bappenas, Andrinof A. Chaniago, delivered a material on "Strengthening Tourism Development in Indonesia"; and the second speaker, Prof. Armida Alisjahbana, Professor of the FEB of the Padjadjaran University, delivered the material on "Asia Pacific: Challenges for Future Sources of Sustainable Growth". At the Plenary Session II (the second day), two speakers were also presented, namely Prof IKG Bendesa (Professor of FEB Unud) and Dr. Budy Resosudarmo (Associate Professor of ANU-Indonesia Project), each of them presented the material with the topic "Bali Tourism Policy: Misleading" and "Sustainable Tourism: Critical Reflection from Southeast Asian Cultural Perspective".

On the parallel class sessions (Parallel Session), the entire presenters whose abstract have passed the selection process from the IRSA 2015 reviewers, presented their papers on different classes according to schedule and venue set. This class divisions were based on a theme / topic selected. In the parallel sessions all participants were distributed into nine classrooms, where each presenter who was not presenting their paper could go freely into any room.

On the Special Session it was specifically filled by an organization or group presenting results of their researches. The followings were the 4 special sessions at IRSA 2015:

  • Special Session I: “Publishing in Scientific Journal’ by Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES), Economic and Finance in Indonesia, Journal of Indonesian economy and Business, and The Journal of Applied Quantitative Economic (JEKT-FEB UNUD).
  • Special Session II: “Indonesian Family Life Survey from Survey Meter” from Gadjah Mada University and University of Indonesia.
  • Special Session III: “Implementation of Village Law”  from Knowledge Sector Initiative organization
  • Special Session IV: SAINS 45,  An Indonesian Science Agenda toward a Century of Independence from Knowledge Sector Initiative organization

IRSA Social Program

The social programs at this IRSA 2015 consisted of two events, Gala Diner and Cultural Day Tour. The Bali Governor, Made Mangku Pastika, hosted the open house and had dinner with the participants of IRSA 2015. The Governor directly attended to welcome the participants of IRSA Bali. The next social program was the cultural day tour, in which IRSA 2015 participants were taken to travel to some of the famous tourist destinations in Bali, such as: Kintamani Bangli and Ubud Gianyar. Besides enjoying the beauty of the view, participants were also performed with the spectacle attraction of the famous Barong dance. (NE)