SURABAYA – During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Universitas Nahdlatul Ulama (Unusa) was able to show its existence in maintaining the performance of SINTA (Science and Technology Index) in 2020-2021. This is an outstanding achievement since some universities actually experience a trend of declining in SINTA rankings.
SINTA is a portal that contains measurements of science and technology performance which includes, among others, the performance of researchers, authors, journal performance and the performance of science and technology institutions.
Chairman of Unusa Research and Community Service Institute (LPPM), Achmad Syafiuddin S.Si., M.Phil., Ph.D (who earned his doctoral degree from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia – UTM) revealed, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed people’s habits not only in the social context but also in managing universities. Some universities are forced to adjust to the circumstances to continue to perform their Tri Dharma duties (Three Pillars of University in Indonesia), namely teaching, research, and community service.
He stated that one of the most visible impacts of pandemics is on the performance of research-related educational institutions that can be seen from the performance of Scopus indexed publications. In general, this performance has been presented through the Sinta website managed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. The data shows that some institutions:s performance have decreased in term of the number of publications, especially in the period of 2020 to 2021. The ten best Universities in Indonesia (UI, ITB, UGM, IPB, UNAIR, LIPI, ITS, UNHAS, UNPAD, and UB) based on Sinta’s ranking experienced a decrease in performance in 2021 ranging from 10% to 60% compared to 2020.
On the contrary, Unusa is one of the institutions that can keep publication performance stable despite the pandemic that hit the country. It shows that Unusa could adapt very quickly and carefully so that it can still maintain its performance. It also indicates the spirit of scientific publication of Unusa lecturers is still high. (CHZ/Author)