UNAIR NEWS – As one of the best Faculties of Law in Indonesia, Faculty of Law (FH) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) continues to develop strategies and expand its networks with various international institutions. This was stated by Dean of FH UNAIR, Dr. Nurul Barizah, S.H., LL.M., Ph.D in National Meeting forum organized by Cooperation Body of Dean Faculty of Law State Universities in Indonesia.
The event was held at Mercure Hotel Manado, which took place on March 15-17. This year, National Meeting brought the theme of Revitalizing Legal Education Curriculum towards Industry Revolution 4.0 and Strengthening International Net works.
Dr. Nurul, National Meeting Stearing Comittee was asked to deliver material related to FH UNAIR’s experience in developing international networks within the framework of internationalization of the faculty.
Moreover, she said FH UNAIR’s international network development has been done for a long time. Particulary, when Prof. Zaidun served as Dean of FH UNAIR, she (Dr. Nurul) was still Vice Dean 3 in charge of cooperation and information systems.
“The first strategy carried out by FH UNAIR in this network is maintaining existing cooperation,” he said.
For instance with Netherlands, FH UNAIR has an MoU with 6 Faculty of Law in there: Leiden University, Utrecht University, Erasmus University, Neynrode University, Groningen University and finally Maasctrich University.
In Malaysia, FH UNAIR also cooperates with a number of universities. Among them, University of Technology Mara and University Sultan Zainul Abidin (UNIZA). The collaboration was not only in the form of exchange staff, student exchange, and visiting professors, but also joint research and publications.
“The second strategy is developing existing cooperation, by opening opportunities for collaborating with other universities that have not had prior collaboration,” said Dr. Nurul. “Currently, FH UNAIR making an approach to work together and make an MoU with several universities abroad,” she added.
Meanwhile, the third strategy is joining international law school organizations such as International Association of Law schools (IALS) and Asian Law Institute (ORIGINAL).
Dr. Nurul as one of IALS Board of Governors member advised the Dean of FH to join IALS because they will obtain several benefits such as being host visiting professors from other FH who are members of IALS, attending regional, global and annual meetings, becoming doctrinal members of study groups and joining international certification held by IALS.
The fourth strategy is asking lecturers who completed their studies in abroad to maintain communication with the place or university where they finished their studies.
“For example Vrij University Belgium, one of the lecturers from Faculty of Law UNAIR was the supervisor for doctoral students in there. We also open up the opportunities for those who are studying doctoral degree program at the university to conduct research with a counterpatch from FH UNAIR lecturers.” said the Dean of FH who completed her doctoral program at University of Technology Sydney.
By implementing this strategy, Dr. Nurul said that in 2018, there were 49 international lecturers from various countries who had taught at FH UNAIR, both as visiting professors, guest lecturers and professors. On the contrary, there were more than 30 lecturers from FH UNAIR who also teach and become guest lecturers in various international university and partners of Faculty of Law UNAIR.
In addition, she also offered financial sharing for other FH academics who have limited funds to bring visiting professors from abroad.
In the end of National Meeting, it was decided that FH UNAIR’s international networking strategy would be a referencee for other state universities of FH throughout Indonesia. (*)
Author: Zanna Afia Deswari
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
