The Current State and Challenges of Science and Technology Innovation in Indonesia: An NVivo-Based Analysis

Abstract

Indonesia’s “Golden Indonesia 2045” seeks to bring about a paradigm shift in the country’s development model towards new technologies. Although Indonesia’s digital economy and innovative development indicator has ambitious prospects, the country lags in research intensity, human resources, knowledge acquisition, and local research collaboration. This study uses qualitative policy-document analysis with the help of the NVivo tool to investigate how Indonesian policies and strategies address science and technology, economic growth, and quality of life to identify factors that foster innovation-growth in the country. The article argues that economic growth fosters innovative growth by providing resources, developing industries, accumulating human and material resources, and coordinating research in the community. The study also shows that a better quality of life leads to the creation of demand and the availability of human-capital which is conducive to new development. Recent health statistics on Indonesia’s innovation performance provide evidence for this work, as the country has improved its ranking in the global innovation rankings from 85th by 2020 to 55th by 2025, but human-capital and research still need much improvement. This study concludes that the major policy challenge for Indonesia in its next stage of development is to convert the growth into sustained increases in R&D investment and innovation activity as health, education, public, and entrepreneurial sectors are incorporated into research. The paper provides a valuable contextual perspective on the innovation-growth strategies applicable to other developing countries.