INDONESIA

Boom and bust

Asked the greatest achievement of his institute in the past five years, Sangkot Marzuki, director of the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta, says: “Still being here.”

The 1990s were a boom time for Indonesian science. In 1993, the Eijkman Institute was resurrected after political, social and economic unrest closed its doors in 1965. But the Asian financial crisis of 1997 threatened to reverse the gains.

In 1998, following two years of social unrest and demonstrations, Indonesia’s autocratic leader, General Suharto, stepped down, ushering in free elections and reform. Since 2004, the president has been freely elected. Religion does not seem to have the same link with power as in other predominantly Muslim countries. Nearly 90% of Indonesians are Muslims, but neither of the main political parties is strongly linked with Islam. Still, opposition by many smaller Islamic parties was crucial in quashing the bid by a woman, Megawati Sukarnoputri, to retain her position as president in 2004.
Religious friction has hurt science by threatening international collaborations. Marzuki says that before 1998 his institute had six Australian scientists on three-year grants from the Australian government. “With the travel restrictions frequently issued, especially after the Bali bombing, no collaboration has been possible,” he says.

Islam itself is very flexible in relation to science, says Marzuki: “Our institute performs prenatal diagnosis against common genetic diseases, in particular thalassaemia. The government is against reproductive cloning but supportive of therapeutic cloning, a position adopted on the recommendation of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences.”

With stability, Indonesia could be a fertile ground for science. The government, when cash flow allows, supports research. But no one welcomes the misfortunes that have forced research in some fields — earthquakes, tsunami monitoring, avian influenza — on Indonesian scientists.
David Cyranoski