UNAIR NEWS – Well maintained relation for years was an important factor of Department of Historical Science, Faculty of Humanities, UNAIR’s cooperation with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Delft University of Technology. Evidently, on Friday, March 4, they held a seminar “International Seminar on Urban History”. It was held in Siti Parwati Room, FIB UNAIR, attended by Dr. Freek Colombijn from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Dr. Pauline K.M van Roosmalen from Delft University of Technology.

Freek and Pauline are two Dutch researchers who have done researches for years in Indonesia. Freek focused his research on waste treatment, while Pauline on the urban development governance. Their researches were in line with the study of UNAIR Historical Science Department which focus on Urban History.

“The cooperation started from a personal relationship. For Freek, he has visited UNAIR often since 2005. Now there’s a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with FIB. This cooperation was to implement University Tri Dharma (Three Virtues). Their coming this time was to present scientific speech in the department as well as to continue research on waste treatment in Surabaya,” said Gayung Kasuma, S.S., M.Hum., as the head of UNAIR Historical Science Department.

In the seminar, Freek talked about his various researches in Indonesia including the one on waste treatment in Surabaya he has worked in the last six years.

“Environment is important for human anywhere. There are many environmental problems neglected. I want to know why human cannot interact well with the ecosystem. We know there are many environmental problems but we did not move to act. I think it is very worrying. And I focused on waste and its treatment,” said Freek.

Previously, Freek has also conducted researches in Indonesia such as on violence, social life of Indonesian after the Independence, urban modernity in Indonesia. His doctoral research was on Padang development in West Sumatra. About his research on waste, Freek has planned to publish a book.

“The research has not finished, in progress. Maybe this research will never finish. I have collected materials in sites for six years. In between I also wrote on different topics. Hopefully this research can be a book,” Freek said.

MoU between Historical Science Department and Freek was established in December 2015 in  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and it will last for another five years.

In the next couple of months, Freek will provide training on international scientific publication. It was to encourage the lecturers to conduct researches and publish them globally, as targeted by the FIB UNAIR that at least there should be 10 scientific researches published in international journal in 2016.

“With the MoU at faculty level, he will help at least to share the process and identification to international journals. So, they can be easily included in Scopus Index,’ said Gayung.

The seminar was the second of seminars held by UNAIR Historical Science Department. In February, Historical Science Department invited Australian speakers, Prof. Howard Dick, an author of “Surabaya, City of Work: A Socioeconomic History, 1900-2000” and Robbie Peters, the author of “Surabaya, 1945-2010: Neighbourhood, State and Economy in Indonesia’s City of Struggle”.

In the future, this international cooperation will be maintained to reach World Class University. Gayung said that Historical Science Department is opened to another scientific study which wants to be in synergy and gain the same discipline of knowledge. Thus, Historical Science learns about Historical society, which included social problem review, culture, architecture, economy and other fields. (*)

Author: Binti Quryatul Masruroh