Indonesia is focusing on developing infrastructure and ecosystem for research. Data of the Global Competitiveness Index 2019 mentioned that research productivity in Indonesia was 0.02% in 2015. This is still far below the ideal 15%. Therefore, it needs to be improved and supported by the government and private sector.
Head of National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Laksana Tri Handoko has recently explained that research conditions in Indonesia are not growing optimally, and are still dominated by the government. Some 80 percent of research was conducted by the government while only 20 percent was done by non-government.
Considering this situation, the government keeps encouraging the private sector to join in research and development activities. One of which is by preparing fiscal incentives to stimulate the private sector to do research and development. With this policy, a tax subject that conducts certain research and development in Indonesia can be granted 100% gross income deduction from the total cost for the activity.
With the fiscal incentive, it is expected that the private sector can actively join in awakening the spirit of research and development in Indonesia. The private involvement in doing research and development is very necessary so that the research and development ecosystem in Indonesia can grow further. Therefore, research productivity in Indonesia can keep increasing.