Dr. rer. Nat. Abdul Haris, Deputy Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs at the Universitas Indonesia, was appointed as Director General of Higher Education, Research and Technology replacing Prof. Ir. Nizam, M.Sc., DIC, Ph.D., IPU, ASEAN.Eng. The event was attended by Chancellor of UI Prof. Ari Kuncoro, Chancellor of IPB University Prof. Arif Satria, S.P., M.Sc., Ph.D, vice chancellors, university secretaries, and deans from UI, Saleh Husin (Former Minister of Industry of the Republic of Indonesia for the 2014–2016 Period), and others, in Jakarta. The inauguration was led directly by the Minister of Education and Culture, Nadiem Anwar Makarim, B.A., M.B.A.
In his remarks, Minister Nadiem said that the inauguration was closely related to efforts to transform the Indonesian education system through the Merdeka Belajar program. Due to the breakthrough of Kampus Merdeka, Indonesia has succeeded in sending thousands of students to study off-campus to prepare globally competitive graduates. Entering the fifth year of the program, he hopes that the mutual cooperation and collaboration that has existed can become stronger to ensure the sustainability of this movement.
“To Prof. Dr. rer. Nat. Abdul Haris, who was appointed today as Director General of Higher Education, Research and Technology, I hope that you will continue to improve your performance and professionalism to accelerate improvements in the quality of higher education. I hope that you can support, facilitate, and ensure the sustainability of the implementation of the Kampus Merdeka. Continue to encourage campuses throughout Indonesia to achieve the eight main performance indicators so that our universities can enter the ranks of the World’s Top Universities,” said Minister Nadiem.
He also said that in 2024, the Directorate General of Higher Education and Technology will organize a University Revitalization Program to encourage improvements in the quality of higher education and accelerate the transformation of Public Universities into Public Service Agency University (BLU) and Legal Entity University (BH). Therefore, he hopes that Prof. Haris as Director General of Diktistek can lead the implementation of this priority program as best as possible.
Prof. Haris was appointed as Director General of Diktristek based on the Presidential Decree of the Republic of Indonesia Number 20/TPA of 2024 concerning the Appointment of Middle High Leadership Officials within the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology. He replaced Prof. Ir. Nizam, who previously served as Plt. Director General of Higher Education, Research and Technology. Before being appointed as Director General of Diktiristek, Prof. Haris served as Deputy Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs UI since 2019. During two periods, namely 2014–2017 and 2018–2019, he also served as Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences UI.
Besides holding structural positions, Prof. Haris is also actively producing innovative research products. Some of his works even have Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), including Software for Mapping Thin Reservoir Pore Volumes in Oil and Gas Exploration, Computer Program (Software) Converting Hard Copy Seismic Images into Seismic Data, Geophysical Applications for Oil and Gas Reservoir Characterization, Geophysical Computing Applications, and Computer Program (Software) for Microtremor Seismic Data Processing. The sciences he has developed are the result of the implementation of the education he has taken so far, namely the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Physics at UI, as well as the Doctoral Degree in Geophysics at the University of Kiel, Germany. Meanwhile, he received his doctoral degree in Geophysics from Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences UI in 2019.
