Agreements signed

Preliminary agreements were signed with the Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta and the Universitas Gadja Madah in Yogyakarta, that will result in broader co-operation across different areas, including:

• student exchanges
• research partnerships in the fields of parasitology and cervical cancer
• dual degree programmes for students of Humanities
• greater co-operation in PhD research and the training of PhD candidates; more Indonesian candidates should be able to take their PhD in Leiden. (In this context fruitful discussions were held with the Indonesian Ministries of Education and Culture, Religion and Finance.)
• joint celebration of the anniversaries in 2015 and 2017 of the construction of the botanical gardens at Bogor (200 years) and Leiden (425 years).

Just how far back the links with Indonesia extend is apparent from the fact that Caspar Reinwardt, founder of the botanical garden in Bogor, later became a professor in Leiden and Director of the Leiden Hortus.

Academic and other collaboration

The delegation consisted of a varied group of 16 members, including: Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker, deans Geert de Snoo (Science) and Wim van den Doel (Humanities), the Scientific Director of the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Gerard Persoon; Professor of Contemporary Indonesia Studies, David Henley; Lex Peters and Maria Yazdanbakhsh, both professors at LUMC; head of alumni affairs at Leiden University, Lilian Visscher; Eric Beerkens, responsible for internationalisation at the Academic Affairs directorate and head librarian Kurt de Belder.

It was a successful visit. 'Leiden University and Indonesian universities already had a close relationship, but it is now even stronger,' commented Stolker. 'It was, in fact, one big celebration of the past and the future.'

Sultan Hamengku Buwono X

The delegation was received with great ceremony by the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengku Buwono X, who is also governor of Yogyakarta. His father was a Leiden alumnus, having studied in Leiden from 1936 to 1939. During his time in Leiden he was a member of the committee of Minerva. The imminent war forced him to return to Indonesia shortly before he was due to graduate. Hamengku Buwono X succeeded his father a short time later. The present sultan was presented with a diploma from Leiden University to commemorate his father's time in Leiden. The diploma will be exhibited in the museum that is part of the palace. The sultan was profuse in his thanks, and invited the University to contribute to further developing the leadership skills of senior Indonesian civil servants.

KITLV in Jakarta

De Belder and Van den Doel had meetings with staff of the local branch of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITIV). From 1 July they will be part of the Leiden University Library (UB) and will be moving to new premises within the Dutch embassy.

At that time, the Leiden UB will become responsible for the collection of the KITIV, having already taken over part of the collection of the discontinued Royal Institute for the Tropics (KIT). By combining these different collections and with its own existing collection, Leiden will become the world's richest source of information on Indonesia. The collection of more than ten kilometres of books, magazines, maps, photos and manuscripts will be housed in Leiden University's planned Asiatic Library. De Belder wants to make the collection available in digital form where this is both possible and useful so that scientists anywhere in the world can consult the works without having to be physically in Leiden.

Alumni find jobs via network

Head of alumni relations Lilian Visscher was in Indonesia to strengthen the links with Leiden alumni, both indigenous Indonesians and Dutch people who live in the country. There are some 600 Leiden alumni spread throughout Indonesia, more than 50 of whom attended a dinner at the residence of Ambassador Tjeerd de Zwaan – himself also a Leiden alumnus. According to Visscher, Law and Humanities are fields that have a lot of Indonesian alumni. One of the speakers at the meeting was Mia Malik, a young Indonesian alumna who had followed an advanced master's in Law. ‘She demonstrated how important the alumni network can be; she found her job at an NGO via her Leiden alumni network.'

(4 March 2014)