Saturday, 1 June 2024, would be the beginning of the journey of one of the Faculty of Biology UGM lecturers, as well as the head of the Research Centre for Biotechnology, Dr. Yekti Asih Purwestri participated in training activities and workshops at the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Adelaide (UoA), Australia. This program is part of the KONEKSI Grant which is a partnership program between Australia and Indonesia. With the title “Building a Sustainable Future: Developing Nutritious and Climate-Resilient Crop Varieties”, this collaboration also involves BRIN Indonesia and IRRI Philippines. Through this funding, Dr. Yekti had the opportunity to include young lecturers from the Faculty of Biology, namely Dr. Siti Nurbaiti. Both were warmly welcomed by members of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Training Centre for Future Crops Development on Monday 3 June 2024, which also coincided with their regular meeting held every first week of every month.
During two weeks at ANU, Dr. Yekti and Dr. Baiti was accompanied by Dr. Hendry Susila who is an Innovation Fellow at the Training Centre and Chief Investigator of this team’s KONEKSI grant. Dr. Hendry is also an alumnus of Faculty of Biology UGM, class of 2007, who at that time was supervised by Dr. Yekti for the final thesis assignment. Apart from carrying out laboratory activities related to molecular work, Dr. Yekti and Dr. Baiti also visited the Australian Plant Phenomic Network (APPN) which provides facilities with a machine learning system used for automatic analysis of plant characteristics. One of them is through high-throughput multispectral imaging which can capture three-dimensional (3D) views of plants with a wide range of light wavelengths. Besides, there are many controlled growth chambers and capsule chambers for plant growth and development, especially related to ecophysiology.
In another moment, coinciding with the visit of the Australian Award awardee, who mostly came from the coconut and spice industry in Indonesia, Dr Yekti and Dr Baiti also joined in the activities held at the Agrifood Innovation Institute. Dr Hendry also introduced the Training Centre and the KONEKSI grant. On the final day at ANU, Dr. Yekti had the opportunity to take part in seminar activities regularly held by the Research School of Biology, Division of Plant Sciences (PS Seminar Series) which can be accessed offline and online. Dr. Yekti presented some research that had been carried out by the pigmented rice research group. Still at ANU, Dr. Yekti and Dr. Baiti also met with students from the IUP program of the Faculty of Biology UGM who are currently taking part in a double degree program at the School of Biology, College of Science, ANU (Vanessa Jesslyn Wijaya and Sabut Kharisona). As well as one of the alumni of Faculty of Biology UGM, Imam Fathoni, who is currently attending Ph.D. program.
The activities continued in Adelaide, a workshop attended by all members of the Training Centre for Future Crops Development from ANU and UoA, including industry partners. The KONEKSI team was also present completely: Dr. Tri Rini Nuringtyas, Dr. Yustina C.F.S., Gloria Fransisca K.L., and a team of research assistants from UGM; Dr. Aris Hairmansis, Dr. Yudhistira Nugraha, and Trias Sitaresmi, M.Sc. from BRIN; and Prof. Inez Slamet-Loedin from IRRI. This activity, which took place from 18-21 June 2024, not only contained an overview of the vision, programs, research areas and achievements of the Training Centre but also opportunities for future collaboration and sharing from partners about career diversity and work experience in research and industry. Poster sessions from doctoral and postdoctoral students also stimulate communication between participants and build new connections. Discussions related to the concept of Responsible Research and Inclusive Innovation (RRII) also enriched the interaction by dividing participants into small groups.
The workshop activities were continued with a meeting of the KONEKSI consortium to convey research progress from both science and social science research. Together with Prof. Barry Pogson (Centre Director) and Prof. Joan Leach (Director of the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science), discussions regarding the achievements, challenges and sustainability of collaboration in the future were the main discussion points with the hope that this collaboration would be maintained and become stronger.
On the last day in Adelaide, the KONEKSI team had the opportunity to come to the UoA Waite campus, specifically the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space (P4S), which is an international research consortium with one of the projects to develop and provide plants with high nutrition, supply of materials and medicines needed for future space exploration. Apart from that, the KONEKSI team visited the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility at UoA. With this facility, a combination of biology, engineering, robotics, and data management are collaborated and integrated to measure how plant genetics are expressed in various growing conditions to accelerate the understanding and development of higher yielding and more nutritious plant varieties, resistant to climate change, and more sustainable agricultural practices.
Through this activity, it is also hoped that the existing collaboration between the Faculty of Biology UGM and ANU will continue and become stronger, for both students and lecturers to increase capacity, capability and international networks as a form of commitment of the Faculty of Biology UGM in supporting sustainable development and in accordance with sustainable development targets (SDGs) which include good quality education (SDGs 4) and revitalization of global partnerships (SDGs 17). Apart from the double degree program, which is already running, there are other open opportunities through the Future Research Talent (FRT) program (https://science.anu.edu.au/study/scholarships/future-research-talent-awards-indonesia) and scholarships from ANU for Ph.D. candidate students.