The university was established in 1963 as previously it was the faculty of Agriculture & Veterinary Medicine at the University of Indonesia. During the 1960s, President Soekarno realised that the steep growth of the population meant that Indonesia needed a secure food supply and this was a real national concern at the time so the need for an agriculture focused university was recognised. Under the Dutch, Bogor had been the centre for agricultural research and education so it was a strategic decision to locate the university here.

Today, global food security remains a crucial issue therefore IPB has a role to play in developing new technology to produce more food not only for Indonesia but the ASEAN region and the world. Agriculture also has an important role in employment in Indonesia as well as maintaining the environment so this is the approach the university takes towards agriculture studies.

Over the next decade, we are also facing the issue of the decline in interest in studying agriculture from the next generation. This is the main challenge that the university faces today.

The most crucial issue is the mismatch between research and commercial entities in Indonesia. The food security issue requires collaboration between government agencies, universities and private businesses. The private sector is also unwilling to spend funds on research and development.

At IPB we have produced 131 innovations or patents over the past 4 years which have been registered with the Ministry of Research and Technology. Yet, only 10% of these innovations are in the market and being used by the agriculture sector. The challenge is therefore how to improve on this and get more innovations to the market.

The university also has a commercial arm to bring our research to the market. This entity produces bio-pharma goods, health foods and has 5 retail outlets in malls throughout Indonesia.

We have a very long history of collaboration with foreign universities such as Goettingen University of Germany to study forestry and the creation of systems for sustainable forest management. I also just returned recently from the USA after a trip to extend our collaboration on climate research with Wakeforest University of North Carolina. Texas A&M is another university that we work with in the USA.

For research we work with the South East Asia Food, Agriculture, Science and Technology Centre (SEAFAST) and Cornell University for climate change risk management. We have many models of collaboration with universities all over the world.

For the future, the strategic field of interest for further partnerships would be food security to develop new varieties of crops and cultivation systems to increase yields. For example, Indonesia is a major importer of wheat and this is a good opportunity to develop tropical wheat varieties that can be cultivated in Indonesia. Bio-energy is another area as Indonesia is still reliant on fossil fuels even though we have a wide range of potential energy resources from CPO, tapioca etc. Health related research is another area in addition to animal related diseases such as avian influenza.

In terms of the private sector, IPB has partnered with a company from Japan to develop an avian influenza vaccine. If a foreign company fulfils all the requirements to have a business in Indonesia then we are very open to working with them for further research initiatives.

At the moment we only offer one course in English so we are currently developing our international program. As you may know, we are very strong in food science technology and this is the only department outside of North America that has the approval from the Institute of Food Technology so it is very globally orientated. We are also in the process of getting accreditation for our veterinary program by the Australian Veterinary Boards Council and so we are keen to invite foreign students to study here to gain an internationally recognised qualification while gaining experience in Indonesia.