Undip Wins First Place for World Class Professor (WCP) Recipient from Ministry of Education and Culture in 2020

Diponegoro University won first place in World Class Professor (WCP) 2020 grant program competition, which is initiated by Ministry of Education and Culture of Republic of Indonesia through the Directorate General of Higher Education (Direktorat Jenderal Perguruan Tinggi/DIKTI). This achievement was announced by the Directorate of Higher Education on August 10th 2020.

In this competition, there are 5 UNDIP lecturers who had successfully passed the World Class Professor (WCP) Scheme B competition, they are:

1. Prof. Ir. Retno Murwani, M.Sc., M.App.Sc., Ph.D., (Faculty of Animal and Agricultural Sciences / Integrated Lab) with WCP partners Prof. Anthony J.Sinskey (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
2. Prof. Dr. Denny Nugroho Sugianto, S.T., M.Sc., (Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences / Integrated Lab) with WCP partners Prof. Dr. Andrivo Rusidy (National University of Singapore)
3. Ahmad Ni’matullah Al-Baarri, S.Pt., M.P., Ph.D., (Faculty of Animal and Agricultural Sciences) with WCP partners Prof. Shigeru Hayakawa (Kagawa University, Japan)
4. Dr. Muhammad Helmi, S.Si., M.Si. (Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences / PUI CoREM) with WCP partners Prof. Sucharita Gopal (Boston University, USA)
5. Dr.Sc. Anindya Wirasatriya, S.T., M.Si., M.Sc. (Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences / Oceanography Dept.) with WCP partner R. Dwi Susanto, PhD, (University of Maryland, USA)

World Class Professor (WCP) is a program from the Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Culture that invites world-class professors from various well-known universities abroad as visiting professors to be placed in various universities in Indonesia. This program is intended so that lecturers/researchers can interact with well-known and excellent professors in order to improve their academic life, competence, quality, and contribution to the development of science and technology. It also aims to strengthen National Innovation system as an effort to make optimal use of the diversity and wealth of Indonesia’s natural resources for the greatest possible welfare for Indonesian people as mandated by the constitution of Republic of Indonesia. The World class professor (WCP) program is divided into two, namely scheme A and scheme B, however due to COVID-19 pandemic, only scheme B is offered by Directorate General of Higher Education and its implementation is online. From more than 60 applicants, only 34 applicants passed until the final stage and Undip placed 5 of its lecturers as recipients of WCP scheme B program in 2020. This is the highest number of lecturers of universities in Indonesia participating in the program.

Undip Rector, Prof. Dr. Yos Johan Utama, S.H., M.Hum. expresses gratitude for the achievements. “These achievements have increased reputation of Undip researchers and lecturers in the international level to partner with researchers/lecturers abroad from the best universities in the world”, he said. In addition, Vice Rector for Research and Innovation, Prof. Dr. Ir. Ambariyanto, MSc., who is also the person in charge of activities representing Diponegoro University, stated that this program opens opportunities for cooperation in terms of academics (visiting lectures), research (joint research), and publications (joint publication) between Undip researchers/lecturers and professors with excellent reputation at the global level.