What is su-re.co Kick-off Workshop?

Hi all, this is Amanda from the think-team.

Tomorrow is our kickoff workshop for our two European Commission projects, LANDMARC

and TIPPING+

There is a lot to prepare, because this will be our first big event in 2021. We will have speakers from international institutions (EU partners and UNESCAP) and local policymakers (ESDM and BAPPENAS), as well as a Focus Group Discussion. But why are we inviting so many stakeholders to hear about our projects? The answer is something I only learned after stepping out of University.

I learned that the world of research can be a bubble of its own in Universities, where a lot of research result is left unread in a mountainous database of research papers. Let's not forget all the rejected research papers that cannot even be accessed anywhere, but that's a different topic. The main thing I want to talk about is the importance of stakeholder engagement in implementing research.

One of the highlights of this event is the Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The FGD is a means to synergize activities, align plans, and make sure we have effective overlaps among stakeholders. Surely, this will open doors of opportunities that will be useful for the projects, but also for the betterment of the country as we can create pathways so that our research can be directly implemented! This is why we are presenting our projects, so that they will not be left in the dust.

We talked a lot about backcasting here in su-re.co. You can explore it in our CEO Tak's blog here among the many other ones. One of the main lessons I learned from this framework is that, we often talk a lot about solutions, but really, we need to find solutions that close the gap between the current situation and the vision. If the research results are the practical solutions, then we still have a gap as we need to implement it. And to implement it we cannot do it alone. I learned that in the real world, there is a difference between research and implementation, but it does not mean that they have to separated 😉.

I hope to see you tomorrow!