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Photo credit: ICRS Yogyakarta

Following the signing of an MoU on 18 July 2022, Globethics.net and Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) further consolidated their partnership with the launch of a new regional office at the UGM Graduate School, Yogyakarta. This marks another key step since Dr Dicky Sofjan took on the role of National Director of the Globethics.net Indonesia office this year to grow the network in the region and to work to support faculty/student mobility, collaborative research, joint conferences/workshops, publications, and other international collective efforts.

Per Globethics.net President and Founder Prof. Dr Christoph Stückelberger at the launch of the new regional office this 14 December 2022, Globethics.net and UGM have fostered strong ties since 2010 through the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), the regional coordinator of Globethics.net Indonesia led by Dr. Siti Syamsiyatun. ICRS is a consortium of three universities, UGM, State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga (UIN), and Duta Wacana Christian University (UKDW), that offers a Ph.D. program in inter-religious studies.

Executive Director-Elect of Globethics.net Prof. Dr Fadi Daou emphasised the enormous potential for future collaboration. “Hopefully, we can soon sign a cooperation agreement to concretize all the plans ahead”, he said, adding that the growing cooperation between the two parties was in line with the new Globethics.net Strategy for 2023-2027.

Contextualising the opening of the regional office against a background of the ethical deficits in Indonesia, International Board Member, Director of Globethics.net Indonesia, and core doctoral faculty at ICRS, Dr. Dicky Sofjan added that this collaboration would increase the involvement of UGM, faculty members, and students in a diverse range of issues pertaining to ethics both in their work and studies and beyond.

“It is essential to infuse ethics and values education into higher education institutions and curricula”, said Prof. Siti Malkhamah, Dean of UGM Graduate School and host of the launch event. With the more than 20 study programs offered by the Graduate School, the 18 faculties and one vocational school in UGM, the collaboration would surely be mutually beneficial, she continued.

The Globethics.net team took the opportunity of the regional office launch to present the diverse and enriching resources that the growing network benefits from: the Globethics.net University Ranking (GUR), the Higher Education Ethics Model of Excellence Tool (HE-EMET), online courses, the leading online ethics library, and local and international conferences, amongst much more.

Representing UGM, the event was attended by the Director of the UGM International Office, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business and representatives of the Bio-Ethics Study Program, Management of Ethics and Strengthening of Integrity (MEPI) Unit, ICRS Faculty and Staff, UKDW and Baylor University in Waco-Texas. The Deputy Deans of the Graduate School also attended the event and Rev. Angie Wuysang, Globethics.net Work-Study Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate at ICRS, was Master of Ceremony.

Globethics.net looks forward to seeing the impact of this strengthened partnership to embed ethics in higher education in Indonesia and globally.