Research Support 2018: Local Government Innovation
IRSA-YIPD Research Support on Local Government Innovation

Rationale
Despite nearly two decades of decentralization, inter-regional development disparity is still high and persisted. Moreover, intra-regional disparity reflected in the inequality between different groups of the population has been increasing to an unprecedented level in Indonesian history. One of the root causes of the rising inequality is the unequal access to improvements in the quality of human resources, especially those related to skills improvement, through education, and the quality of public health. These services are the responsibility of the state decentralized to local government. In order to optimally exercise this decentralized function toward the improvement of development outcomes, regions and localities need to be innovative in the way they serve people, produce or encourage innovation, or even produce innovative development actors and leaders.

In many cities or provinces in Indonesia, we start seeing innovation in development, yet they are not yet a norm, but exceptions. The understanding of the conditions under which such innovations occur is empirically limited. Yet, we need those so that we can find lessons learned so success in certain areas can be replicated.

Research Support
As an iniative to produce more knowledge about why and how this innovation occur, IRSA and Yayasan Inovasi Pemerintah Daerah (YIPD) is supporting research on this area. The research is in the form of small research grants of Rp. 25,000,000 for any good quality research that potentially can produce new knowledge on the local government innovation in Indonesia.

Research topics
The specific topics of the reseach can be, but not limited to, the following:

1. What are enabling environment that can help create innovation in the public services in the regions or localities?
2. What are the impacts of innovations in the area of public services delivery in the regions/localities on the development outcomes?
3. Has and to what extent democratization and decentralization produced innovative local/regional development actors, including political leaders?
4. To what extent, political leaders or public figures play a role in the innovation of public services delivery in the regions/localities?
5. To what extent bureaucracy can transform to create innovation in the public services delivery in the regions/localities?
6. Has there been any best practices in the regions/localities related to local government innovations that can be replicated in other areas?

Who can apply?
Indonesian researchers in all disciplines of sciences who are willing to present the research findings in the 14th IRSA conference in Surakarta in July 2018. Non-Indonesian researchers are eligible as long as their research is on Indonesia or on topics that is of much relevance to Indonesia.

Timelines

1. Announcement: 15 January 2018
2. Deadline of proposal submissions: 28 February 2018
3. Notification of the winner: 31 March 2018
4. Presentation of the findings: 23-24 July 2018
5. Final paper submissions: 31 August 2018

Submission
Proposal need to be part of the following downloadable form and submitted via email to heriyaldi@fe.unpad.ac.id

For more information: http://irsa-indonesia.org/research-support-2018-local-government-innovation/