Universitas Pembangunan Jaya and Humboldt Kolleg Germany to Solve Urban Problems through Urban Partnership Melting Pot

Universitas Pembangunan Jaya (UPJ) wants to continue its tradition of excellence in the field of Urban Studies through an activity entitled Urban Partnership Melting Pot. This activity will take place virtually from January 17-22, 2022. Through the Urban Partnership Melting Pot, we invite researchers, writers, and the media from Indonesia and beyond to join in contributing thoughts and creative ideas through the focus of the theme:

1. Urban Growth Pattern, transformation, and resilience
2. Urban Mobility and Internet of Things
3. Social, health, education, environment, and economic development

The Urban Partnership Melting Pot is part of UPJ's collaboration with Humboldt Kolleg, which aims to strengthen regional professional cooperation networks among alumni (Humboldtians). This melting pot will also introduce and increase the interest and enthusiasm of young researchers towards the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) program. This organization puts forward the idea of collaboration between countries with Germany as a research location. Humboldt Kolleg activities are initiated by alumni (Humboldtians) or their associations. AvH supported the Humboldtians financially. Humboldt Kolleg has been held in various countries outside of Germany (United States, France, Italy, Poland, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, China, India, and others). The participants are alumni of the AvH program and young researchers who have made fundamental contributions to the development of science. Thus, Humboldt Kolleg has become an essential instrument in assembling the best young researchers, a generation of potential leaders in science and technology, and other fields in Germany and worldwide.

It is appropriate that UPJ's activities in collaboration with Humboldtians are called "melting pots," not only from researchers, speakers, and participants from various countries; the theme of Urban Studies is also a broad theme that spreads from different fields of science. This is in line with UPJ's efforts to mainstream Urban Studies. UPJ has a Center for Urban Studies (CUS), which seeks to answer the challenges of urban planning needs and the comprehensive problems of urban residents. The five main fields that become the derivative clusters of Urban Studies at CUS UPJ are Urban Growth, Urban Culture, Urban Development, Urban and the Future, and Urban Society.

Humboldt Kolleg in 2022 is the second activity organized by UPJ. In 2017, Humboldt Kolleg at UPJ took the theme "The Rise of ASEAN and Strategic Partnership in Understanding the Complexity and Collective Phenomena in Emergent Societies." The activity in 2017 was also a collaboration between UPJ and the Indonesian Ministry of Higher Education. The five main topics at the meeting were: 

1. Urban economics.
2. City planning.
3. Architecture and infrastructure.
4. Urban Health and Society.
5. Environmental risks in Urban and Regional Development.
6. Strategic partnership in Urban Research.

With this track record of activities, UPJ has again become the facilitator of this meeting related to Urban Studies and has shown its total commitment to developing urban studies in Indonesia.

UPJ lecturers also make accurate contributions through concepts, research, and scientific publications in urban studies. This is evident in the achievement of publications; there are 22 Scopus indexed scientific publications on urban studies by UPJ researchers. Meanwhile, there are 64 scientific articles indexed by Google Scholar. Overall in the Sinta index, there are 83 UPJ writers listed in the leading field of Urban Studies. This track record has been recorded since the UPJ's establishment with researchers who were indeed recruited with expertise in urban studies. Various efforts have been made by Universitas Pembangunan Jaya not only to continue the tradition of excellence but to make a real contribution to solving urban community problems through urban studies. In the future, urban studies will be more closely related to the work of the Universitas Pembangunan Jaya.