Department of Economics and Development Studies held International Workshop on Research and Publications for Academicians

February 10, 2018, oleh: superadmin

Yogyakarta—It is paramount important to conduct the research given the unprecedented scope of problems faced by society nowadays. Good research therefore should lead to publications that can be shared to the society for whom the research has aimed. More importantly, research which has an excellent quality is not considered good unless others are informed about it and it can be evaluated eventually.

The previous address was delivered by Prof. Dr. Moha Asri Bin Abdillah when giving the lecture in “Workshop on Academic Research and Publications” hosted by Department of Economics and Development Studies, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Taking place in Postgraduate Director Room, Pascasarjana Building 1st floor, this agenda was attended by numerous lecturers and researchers coming from several universities.

According to Prof Moha, there are five approaches the researcher should be employing, but it is not about methodology, those five are: (1) Core area research approach; (2) Collaborative research approach; (3) Research student approach; (4) Angel research approach and (5) Pipeline research approach. He the emphasized: “First and foremost, I would explain the first approach that is ‘Niche’ area research approach. This approach requires researchers to concentrate and specify area of the research, for instance from Ph.D’s work. By utilizing this approach, there will be some advantages researchers may gain, among others: it will be easier acceptance as researchers gain recognition through increased research and writings in the specialized area and that eventually builds up to being recognized as an expert in niche area.”

Secondly, it is deemed important to pursue collaborative research in which the academic research is divided among researchers. By doing so, he added, saying: ”There will be many advantages to obtain such as the work is pooled, research and writing can be enhanced through conducting collaborative research to increase productivity and acceptance rate for research proposal and also to improve commitment to complete agreed-specific tasks of the research project.”

Thirdly, it is also essential to consider Research student approach in order to always bring new ideas, to learn from others and synergize the new ideas given the complexity of the recent issues. “This approach can be adopted to look for complementary relationships-synergies which are managed and designed to promote the novel ideas and therefore those activities may certainly lead to expand the scope of the research as well as to link to research funding”, added Prof Moha.

When undertaking the research, not only is the perspective of the researcher important, but the angel of the funding agency also needs to be taken into account. Such an approach may  probably be implemented because of networks (academics and non-academics), conferences or business meeting, win-win strategy—contract research and publication. This is the fourth approach that can be implemented, according to Prof. Moha. While the last approach is pipeline research approach that necessitates first building a critical mass of at least two research projects that are ready for submission. As a consequence, Prof. Moha highlighted, saying: “Once we develop a critical mass we need to maintain it by preparing new proposal to be added to pile of submitted proposal, while another one was accepted”.

Besides the aforementioned approaches that can be adopted by academicians when pursuing the research, the way how to secure research funding is increasingly crucial. Prof. Moha said that the first step of preparing the proposal is to read detailed guidelines provided by the funding agency. This becomes a highly important part since the guidelines seem to be refined when the call for proposals are released. Hence, he outlined: ”Writing research proposals are like writing an exam, the answers should fit into the answer scheme.”

At the end, he set out straight ten rules for getting the academic research published, which entail (1) reading many papers and learning from both the good and the bad ones; (2) the objectivity about your work; (3) good editors and reviewers to examine your work objectively; (4) writing in good English; (5) learning to live with rejection; (6) understanding what makes good science and what makes good science writings; (7) starting to write the paper the day you have the idea of what questions to pursue; (8) be a reviewer early in your career; (9) deciding early on where to try to publish your paper; (10) enhancing the quality (not quantity) of the paper is everything. [Aw]