UNAIR NEWS – Universitas Airlangga has made another proudest achievement as one of the best universities in Indonesia. This time, through the international ranking institution, the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS WUR) by Subject 2021, Law and Legal Studies of Faculty of Law (FH) UNAIR was ranked at #251 – 300 globally, and second in Indonesia.
Dean of Faculty of Law (FH) Iman Prihandono, SH, MH, LL.M., Ph.D., said that QS WUR ranks a university through four assessment indicators, employer reputation, academic reputation, research citations per paper, and H-index . Academic reputation, he said, was from the perspective of the academic peer list. Employer reputation assesses the quantity and quality of graduates in the professional world. Research citations per paper assess the quantity of scientific works of academics at FH UNAIR used as references or citated for other academics’ works.
“While the H-index assesses how the impact of FH UNAIR academics’ works on the development of science, or in a simple explanation, it is the quality of works that cited the works of FH UNAIR academics,” he explained.
Meanwhile, continued Iman, FH UNAIR got the greatest score in employer reputation, which means that alumni get very good assessments in the world of work. The second largest is academic reputation.
“From the last 5 years, we have frequently conducted lecturer exchanges, student exchanges, joint publications with other universities abroad,” said the expert on International Trade Law.
Iman said that FH UNAIR will continue to maintain and improve the two indicator values. For the academic peer list, FH UNAIR is targeting around 90 international guest lecturers to teach at FH during 2021, and vice versa, FH UNAIR lecturers will teach abroad. FH UNAIR will also reach out more towards alumni with excellent careers in order to increase the score for employer reputation. Iman said that the relationship between the faculty and alumni must be stabilized through special programs, not just incidental.
“For the next 5 years, we plan to initiate an alumni class program. So at least for each course, one class must be filled by alumni. There may be around 50 courses in one semester. So approximately in one year we can bring in around 100 alumni, so that alumni can feel that they are a crucial part of their alma mater, and we also get the benefit of alumni being able to provide knowledge related to practice in the field that the lecturers might not have, “said the University of Sydney alumnus.
Furthermore, Faculty of Law (FH) will also continue to increase citation and h-index values. Iman said that lecturers should be targeted to increase their publications within one year, but they must be of high quality. He added that the quality of research must also be improved. Legal research at the faculty should no longer be just basic and descriptive research, but be more analytical and anticipatory towards future legal developments.
“We want to focus on three major research corridors that will be encouraged,” he said.
First, with regard to technology, he explained that the law must be able to anticipate technological developments in all aspects of human life, such as economic transactions, the use of AI, and cryptocurrencies. The second is energy, because the world will be faced with the challenges of energy change, the transition from non-renewable energy to renewable energy. Of course, the law must be able to anticipate and accomodate this transition, whether it is in terms of investment law and international trade.
“The third is related to sustainable development goals (SDG). Problems related to SDG are poverty, health, food and Indonesia still has all of these problems, so the law must also take a role there, “he concluded.
Author: Pradnya Wicaksana
Editor: Nuri Hermawan
