The Sustainability of Graphene Research: A Novel Approach in Assessing the Role of Higher Education Policies in Developing Countries—The Case of Indonesia

Abstract

The development of so-called advanced materials is mainly driven by research devoted to supporting industry and now expands to many issues such as energy demand, climate change, healthy awareness, and many others. However, the process of this material evolution is arguably slow in many developing countries, putting them far behind developed counterparts in terms of technological advancement. One of the advanced materials that absorbed global attention and can be adopted to assess research development is graphene. In this work, graphene-related publications of universities and research institutes were utilized to assess how effective the higher education policies of Indonesia, as a developing country, encourage graphene research development. For this purpose, a multidisciplinary perspective was used to comprehensively analyze the findings, highlighting the emerging gaps, orientation, and promising future research that will benefit many researchers, governments, and industries. A total of 667 filtered publications were investigated. In addition, VOSviewer was utilized as a proper complement to visualize and analyze the publication trend based on keywords and authorship. Many aspects were explored, including publication, distribution, collaboration, and policies. The investigation revealed that supportive governmental policies, especially Law No. 12 of 2012, in classifying the entity of universities, had a remarkable impact on the productivity and geographical distribution of graphene research publications. The most important finding, after analyzing 535 publications, showed that publications of graphene research increased dramatically and is centralized on Java Island. Moreover, it strongly indicates that most universities with the authority to self-budget can contribute significantly to advanced materials research. International collaboration with many countries was also strongly formed. By contributing 114 co-authorships, Malaysia was shown to be a favorite counterpart. Therefore, this study confirms that research activity can be utilized to assess the effectiveness of higher education policies. In a broader context, the advanced materials research publication is emerging as an indicator in revealing Indonesia’s socio-economic development. The trend of graphene research itself demonstrates the raising of developing countries’ awareness of global issues.

1. Introduction

Activity in materials science in human history is ancient, started with the utilization of stone, bronze, iron, clays and ceramics, steel, and now with what is known as advanced materials (AdMs). AdMs is a term that has been used for over four decades but has been more frequently used as a description for nanomaterials in recent years [1]. In an attempt to cover all definitions, AdMs can be identified as those materials exhibiting higher strength/density ratios, greater hardness, and/or one or more superior thermal, electrical, optical, or chemical properties compared to traditional materials [2]. For example, industries use lightweight materials such as aluminum as a body component in the car to reduce weight and fuel consumption [3]. Recently, many luxury cars have introduced Kevlar and carbon fiber, as they are lighter materials and have superior mechanical properties [4,5]. Revolutionary materials are also found in screen technology, starting with cathode-ray tube (CRT) glass [6] to polymer so-called liquid crystal display (LCD) [7], and now nanoparticle light-emitting diodes (LED) [8]. In medical fields, intelligent materials based on polymer nanoparticles have been introduced as drug delivery systems for cancer therapy [9] and cardiovascular disease [10], providing the ability to deliver a drug more selectively to a specific site more accurately. It can be concluded that AdMs are becoming increasingly crucial as replacements for traditional materials, facilitating innovative and extraordinary products [11]. However, most developing countries have missed out on various aspects of the last 300 years’ scientific and industrial revolutions, notably the revolution in materials technology [12]. They are at distinct stages of the materials cycle, and they currently have diverse competencies to deal with the new material revolution. To various degrees, they may have utilized local materials, developing new materials, testing, and quality control. In order to determine which current and future materials technologies are most relevant, the materials science and technology institutions in developing countries must first build capacity for technology assessment (TA) [13]. The TA is the most often used collective designation for the systematic procedures used to scientifically study the circumstances for and effects of technology and signify their social appraisal. Therefore, universities and research institutes, especially those whose academics participate in materials research, have a crucial role in shaping how materials technology is used [14]. Thus, materials researchers are connectors between laboratory research and practice, bridging where new technologies are developed and where these technologies are applied. An example for this case is an eminent biomedical researcher, David Kaplan, from Tufts University, Massachusetts, who is known for his laboratory activities with knee ligaments made of silk [15]. For centuries, silk from the silkworm, has been used as a suture material. Kaplan successfully brought the idea in his lab into industry, with a reported eight companies after his first patent [16]. Hence, researchers are particularly suited to assessing AdMs technologies, and they can facilitate the evaluation and application of the technology being used on a broader scale.

One of the AdMs considered to be a hot topic in material science is graphitic carbon material, especially graphene derivatives [17]. In a single term, graphene refers to a flat monolayer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal honeycomb lattice. Graphene was first reported in 2004 by researchers at the University of Manchester led by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov [18]. They promoted the most brilliant so-called ‘Scotch Tape’ method, a straightforward approach to isolating pristine graphene, which delivered them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 [19]. It is noteworthy that graphene is not a standalone material in terms of its application. It acts as an additive that can substantially enhance the whole system’s performance. Automotive industries are pioneers in utilizing graphene in their products, notably incorporating graphene into polymers and composites to increase strength, electrical conductivity, or heat transfer [20,21,22]. For example, in 2016, a UK-based company, Briggs Automotive Company (BAC), was the first company that fully incorporated graphene-enhanced carbon fiber into their Mono R single-seater supercar [23]. This company used graphene in the body panel parts, resulting in higher strength/density ratios and improved thermal performance. Recently, it has been reported that the Ford Motor Company introduced graphene into polyurethane (PU) for their truck and passenger vehicles, resulting in improved tear resistance [24]. So far, it has been identified that graphene plays a significant role in more than 40 major applications areas [25]. Therefore, various research applications of graphene-based materials have been reported, including water desalination [26], photodetectors [27], transistors [28], supercapacitors [29], fuel cells [30], transparent electrodes, and solar cells [31,32,33]. For this reason, it is known that the EU commission launched Graphene Flagship in 2013 [34]. With USD 1.37 billion of funding for 170 institutions in 22 countries, the EU makes graphene a top research priority. The materials researchers will focus continuously on the stage that brings graphene into real applications. They should devote their time to uncovering the boundaries of people’s understanding of this fantastic material. After 17 years, graphene is still considered an unrivaled material for an overwhelming of potential applications.

It is imperative to investigate whether or not developing countries have researched graphene. Since graphene has attracted global attention extensively, research activities in this field can be considered as an awareness of AdMs development. Several developing countries have taken the initiative in order to strengthen their capacity in AdMs, such as India with its NanoScience and Technology Initiative (NSTI) [35,36], and Iran with its Nanotechnology Innovation Council [37]. It is also reported that Brazil first announced its nanotechnology program in 2005 with a budget of about USD 31 million, supported with ten research networks involving about 300 Ph.D. researchers [38]. Malaysia has launched its NanoMalaysia Programme [39]. In this work, specific cases of AdMs, represented by Indonesia’s graphene research, are discussed in some detail. Indonesia has become a member of the G20, indicating this nation has a splendid emerging economy. Contradictorily, among the world’s compliments to Indonesia’s economic rising, innovation, and industry, their advances in materials science and technology has not often been remarked upon [40,41]. From a policy perspective, Indonesia, with its National Research Priorities (PRN) 2017–2019, has stated ten research focuses including, food—agriculture; energy—new and renewable energy; health—medicine; transportation; information and communication technology; defense and security; advanced materials; maritime; disaster; and social humanities—cultural arts—education [42]. The focus of AdMs research in PRN is on: (i) rare earth elements, (ii) permanent magnet materials, (iii) solid battery materials, and (iv) silicone-based materials. However, as the battery becomes a hot issue in the Indonesian research atmosphere, it is expected that graphene, which is utilized as the electrode part, will also stand as a top priority for Indonesian material researchers. Indonesia’s researchers are the front line in transferring global materials research issues to the country. Based on Scopus, the first publication of graphene research affiliated with Indonesia’s institution was recorded in 2010 [43]. After a decade of research, academics, industries, and societies argue that the results of graphene research are not yet evident. In addition, it is believed that there is no link between academic and research institutions that connect to industries; hence most of the research is arguably basic research. However, so far there is no study has been reported to display how far Indonesia’s graphene research took its path.

The research development of countries depends on their research ecosystem support. This research ecosystem is closely related to the supportive research policies of the government. In Indonesia’s context, government policies on higher education levels are fundamental in supporting the research ecosystem since the majority of research activities are conducted by higher education institutions. Therefore, the relationship between higher education policies and graphene research publications is a crucial issue of graphene research achievement.

Typical bibliometric works have been reported to map the publications; however, they mainly focused on number approaches, such as h-index and citation. This study’s objective was to bring new ideas, a combination of bibliometric approach and multidisciplinary perspective in mapping Indonesia’s graphene research. It incorporated an investigation of the policies that affected the publication numbers. The relationship between those numbers and demographics is displayed. Hence, graphene publications can be utilized as an indicator in assessing the effectiveness of higher education policies. The mapping will benefit many parties, such as researchers, government, and industry. For the researcher, this work displays how far they have contributed to graphene research. The result can be considered as a measurement of research effectiveness. In some particular aspects, it will also emerge the research network so they can work and collaborate to bring about greater impacts based on their research. For this purpose, VOSviewer is often utilized as a suitable tool to visualize and analyze the publication map [44,45,46]. As for the industry, it can measure how far research products are from entering the market. To a greater degree, the mapping of graphene publications could also reveal the actual condition of the socio-economic development of Indonesia. The government can utilize the map as a guide in making policies for industry, research, and education. Hence, university research can be seen as a science and a tool for policymaking [47,48]. In other words, this work has two primary purposes: (1) to analyze the achievement of Indonesia’s grapheneresearch and (2) to assess the relationship of higher education policies and graphene research achievements.

2. Materials and Methods

As mentioned above in the introduction, this research has two main objectives; (1) to analyze the achievements of Indonesia’s graphene research and (2) to investigate the relationship between Indonesia’s higher education policies and graphene research achievements. For this purpose, a complete flow of the research is depicted in Figure 1.

The bibliometric study is one of the most widely known techniques for analyzing research publications’ evolution, productivity, and quality [49]. To achieve the purpose of this work, a comprehensive analysis of graphene research publications in Indonesia was performed. It was expected that this work would involve a large quantity of bibliometric data. An investigation based on the bibliometric analysis of publications can be conducted as an effective way to display all graphene research product characteristics, including mapping, status, and trend [50,51]. Accommodating the global community, the bibliographic dataset in this work only focused on the publications that were published by an indexed publisher.

As can be seen in Figure 1, the first step of performing the bibliometric analysis of a research field is to select the available databases (DBs), their suitability, and the consequences of using one or another [52]. They are essential parts of the investigation, as they enable the analysis of the scientific activity conducted by researchers, institutions, regions, and countries. It is widely known that WoS and Scopus are the two bibliographic DBs that are strongly considered as the most reputable data sources [53,54]. For more than 40 years, WoS was the only source of bibliographic data until 2004, when Elsevier launched Scopus [55]. Gradually, Scopus is recognized and often used as a regular preference database for conducting university scientometric studies, even superior to WoS in some particular aspects [56,57]. As a result, many researchers consider Scopus as the most comprehensive peer-reviewed publication database [58]. In this research, Scopus was utilized as DBs based on some considerations. First, the Indonesian government tends to use Scopus as primary DBs in assessing the performance of publication research and evaluating the academic careers of staff at universities [59,60]. Secondly, higher education institutions dictate that publications indexed by Scopus are a requirement for post-graduate students to finish their studies. Third, both WoS and Scopus are subscription-based and expensive data sources; however, most higher education institutions in Indonesia have subscribed to Scopus as DBs.

The second step was conducted to introduce global graphene achievements generally. Here, all graphene publications indexed in Scopus were absorbed. The bibliographic data represented the international publications with the word “graphene” in their title, abstract, and keywords, which were harvested by filter setting in Scopus based on TITLE-ABS-KEY (graphene). In total, it produced 199,619 documents. The data is displayed in Section 3.1, in an illustration to show the year of graphene discovery, and the first publication of Indonesia’s graphene was added. With this approach, a knowledge gap of Indonesia in terms of graphene was able to emerge generally.

The third step, inclusion criteria, was applied. This work focused on Indonesia’s graphene publication. Therefore, the dataset is confined to collecting only publications from Indonesia’s affiliation. Thus, the publications that have Indonesia affiliation utilized two main keywords, “graphene” and “Indonesia”. As a consequence, the filter setting in Scopus is modified into (TITLE-ABS-KEY (graphene) AND AFFILCOUNTRY (indonesia)). It extracts any document from Indonesian affiliation with “graphene” in its title, abstract, and keyword. It harvested a total of 689 publications.

The fourth step was dataset validation. In order to ensure all publications in this study were concerned explicitly with graphene, further data cleaning was performed. Publications not concerned with graphene research were excluded. The validation was conducted through manual checking by the research team. The criteria for the validation was as follows: (1) publications concerning the basic or fundamental knowledge of graphene, (2) publications on how to create, fabricate, and graphene materials, (3) publications concerning the characterization of graphene materials, and (4) publications concerning the real application of graphene. After validation, the dataset retained 667 documents, which comprised 330 conference papers, 315 journal articles, 19 reviews, and three books. The analysis was mainly focused on this dataset. Data is contained within Supplementary Material. The general Indonesia graphene publication achievement is reported in Section 3.2. The analysis of publications based on affiliation is in Section 3.3, and institutions productive in graphene research were investigated. Further investigation in terms of geographical distribution is displayed in Section 3.4. All affiliations were mapped based on their geographical location.

It has been reported that extending data collection to all types is recommended to overcome the limitation and harness more insights [60]. Therefore, we did not restrict the analysis to only one type of publication since this research aims to merge all scientific activities on graphene research. However, we only utilized conference papers and journal articles for particular purposes, mainly for comparison.

The fifth step was an additional investigation conducted with the help of the data mining software VOSviewer©. VOSviewer was used to complement the investigation, especially in visualizing and analyzing the publication trend. In fact, some alternatives software can also be used for this purpose, such as SciMat [61], CiteSpace, and Bibexcel [62]. However, if the desired analysis is to represent temporal development or evolution, VOSviewer can be selected as appropriate software [63]. In this study, VOSviewer was utilized to visualize research cluster evolution and international collaboration formed in Indonesia’s graphene research, as explored in Section 3.5 and Section 3.6, respectively. All those steps were utilized to deliver the first objective of this research, which was to analyze the achievement of Indonesia’s research graphene research.

The second objective of this research, revealing the relationship between Indonesia’s higher education policies and graphene research achievements, also included several steps. First, several research-supportive regulations were collected. Secondly, observations were focused on some regulations that have possibly highly influenced the research ecosystem of Indonesia’s higher education institutions. Third, implementation of higher education regulations, such as the state-owned universities classification (PTN-BH- PTN-BLU, and PTN-Satker) were displayed. Fourth, research policies’ impact based on the characteristics of higher education were extracted. Fifth, higher education characteristics that showed graphene publication achievements were analyzed. All findings of these steps are elaborated in Section 3.7.

3. Results

This section presents the evolution of research in terms of publication over a decade of Indonesia’s graphene research.

3.1. Knowledge Gap

Before we display the publication result from Indonesia’s institution, it is essential to show the knowledge gap between Indonesia and global research in terms of AdMs represented by graphene. Since its discovery in 2004 [18], the number of graphene-related publications has remarkably increased. Figure 2 illustrates the surge of graphene publication from 2004 to the present; more than 196,000 papers were published during this period. Therefore, graphene is considered a suitable proxy to assess the awareness of research institutions on the global issue of AdMs research. The year 2010, when graphene inventors were awarded Nobel prizes, coincided with the first publication that displayed Indonesia’s affiliation [43]. This six-year knowledge gap finding can help answer the question of how far Indonesia—as one of the developing countries, lags behind in terms of materials research.

3.2. Research Publication

From 2010 to the date when the data was harvested, Indonesia’s total publication of 667 documents was displayed in Scopus. Figure 3 demonstrates the publications of graphene research affiliated Indonesia from 2010- to the present. It shows that the number of publications has increased dramatically in recent years. Based on the presented result, the first milestone was in 2013; it was the starting point where publications have been consistently rising every year. Moreover, in 2014, 18 documents were published, more than double that of 2013. Since 2016, the publication rate has tremendously increased.

Further investigation of “journal article vs. conference paper” was performed to measure the quality and depth of research. Since 2013 total publications have risen every year; however, if we look further on each side, the publication rate of journal articles and conference papers per year was different. Figure 4 shows the productivity comparison of journal articles and conference papers. From 2010–2019, conference paper productivity is substantially higher than that of journal articles. Interestingly, in 2013, publications were solely journal articles; no conference papers on graphene research were recorded. It can be assumed that the topic of graphene was still new for researchers. From 2013–2016, the productivity rate of journal articles was stagnant. Since 2017, the journal publication rate has shown a significant increase. Finally, in 2020, journal articles completely dominated the total publication rate by contributing 90 documents.

3.3. Distribution of the Affiliation

Here, we filtered the publications based on affiliation. Considering graphene is a relatively new topic, the requirement for a minimum publication rate during a decade was set at one per year. With this requirement, 17 universities and one research institute successfully emerged. Surprisingly, one university published more than 100 documents between 2010–2021: Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), with 121 documents. Universitas Indonesia (UI) followed in the second rank with 78 documents. Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI), Universitas Airlangga (Unair), Institut Teknologi Sepuluh November (ITS), showed a tight number of publications with 52, 50, and 49 documents. Universitas Padjajaran (UNPAD), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and Universitas Negeri Sebelas Maret (UNS) have contributed with 40, 37, and 32 documents, respectively. A total of 20 documents was shared by Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII). A similar productivity rate of 19 documents were displayed by Universitas Negeri Malang (UM) and Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU). Lastly, a sequential publication number was shown by Universitas Negeri Surabaya (Unesa), Universitas Riau (Unri), Universitas Brawijaya (UB), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY) and Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) with 15, 14, 12, 11, and 10 documents respectively. Combined, these 17 affiliations has successfully contributed 596 documents; hence, they already shared 89% of the entire decade of publication. The distribution of publications based on the criteria is shown in Figure 5.

3.4. The Geographical Distribution

If we perform further investigations on those 17 affiliations, they can be mapped based on their geographical locations. They are distributed only on two islands, as shown in Figure 6. Two universities on Sumatera Island, are located in Medan and Pekanbaru. There are fifteen universities on Java Island, distributed in Depok (1), Bogor (1), Tangerang (1), Bandung (3), Solo (1), Yogyakarta (3), Malang (2), and Surabaya (3). The total publications of affiliations can be clustered based on their respective islands. The combination of universities in Sumatera Island shared 34 documents, and Java Island contributed 535 documents.

3.5. Evolution of Research Cluster

Figure 7 shows the evolution of graphene research groups from Indonesia’s institutions—this cluster research evolution was visualized with VOSviewer software. The dots represents the researcher or author, while the dot size reflects how many documents they have published. The bigger the dots, the more the publications. The fine line connected among them signifies authorship, hence collaboration or joint publications. The position also brings the information. The groups sharing a connection are clustered in the center. In order to further investigate, the cluster evolution is mapped into two periods: 2010–2015 and 2016–2021.

During 2010–2015 (Figure 7a), research groups that published a minimum of two documents were clustered and displayed. Total publications in this period were 48 documents. It can be seen that the research groups are still few and mostly not connected. Moreover, in the early years, many publications obtained were from academic staff collaborating or pursuing their Ph.D. abroad. For example, UI and UGM collaborated with National University of Singapore (NUS), and IAIN Batusangkar with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Figure 7b identifies the keywords most used in the publication, including “density functional”, “transfer matrix”, “armchair graphene”, “X-ray diffraction”, and “Fourier transform infra-red”. It indicates that graphene topic research mainly focuses on characterization, theoretical study, modeling, and simulation [64,65,66,67,68,69]. The most striking institution is ITB, which has many research groups, including those devoted to spectroscopy analysis and metal-graphene hybrid [70,71].

During 2016–2021, it can be seen in Figure 7c that the cluster mapping of the graphene research group is denser compared to that of the first period. However, we purposely displayed the authors that published a minimum of three documents. It can be observed that new groups have emerged from UNAIR, USU, UNRI, UNS, LIPI, and many. As a result, a tremendous publication number of about 594 documents was successfully published in this period. In addition, Figure 7c also showed many lines that connected research groups of ITB, UI, UGM, UNS, UII, UNRI, UM, and USU. These lines formed a network, indicating research collaboration within these institutions. Therefore, they are closely localized in the center of the map. Many groups that work independently are located at the edge of the map. For example, Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ), Universitas Halu Oleo (UHO), IPB, and UNESA have represented this case. As a result, a considerable number of keywords are displayed in Figure 7d, indicating that the graphene research topic is now very diverse. Some new keywords, including “supercapacitors”, “dye-sensitized solar cell”, “organic pollutant”, “coconut shell”, “electrical conductivity”, and “scanning electron microscope”, have emerged. These keywords firmly suggest significant progress in terms of characterization tools, application-oriented, and utilizing local materials.

3.6. International Collaboration

In science and technology policy, co-authorship is used as a proxy for research collaboration [45]. If two scientists have co-authored a publication, they are regarded as linked, and these sorts of relationships between two scientists eventually form co-authorship networks [46]. Scientists from various study fields and geographical regions may join in a single co-authorship network. Figure 8 shows the mapping of co-authorship in graphene publications during 2010–2020. It showed the countries that have a minimum of ten shared publications with Indonesian affiliations. The thickness of the curves link represents the amount of shared publications. Based on the thickness link that represented the co-authorship number, it can be observed that the top four collaborators are from Asian countries. Here, the thickest link connected Indonesia and Malaysia, resulting in the highest number of co-authorships with 114 documents. In the second rank, Japan emerged with 67 documents. The collaboration with Taiwan and Singapore produced 29 and 28 documents, respectively. The documents number from Singapore indicated that geographical location does not enormously impact the collaboration rate. This indication is also supported by document numbers from collaborations with a relatively close neighbor, Australia, that only provided 19 documents. China, India, Pakistan, and the United States, at varying distances from Indonesia, display a relatively similar document number. It also can be observed that Indonesia has shared publications with European countries, represented by Germany and the United Kingdom, showing 12 and 11 documents, respectively. Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh shared the publication of about 11 and 10 documents.

3.7. Research Policies

It is crucial to analyze the essential factors contributing to increases in research publications. We argue that the most critical point is policies, notably in higher education. They determine several aspects such as research direction, funding, facilities, human resources, and many more. Therefore, the relationship between advanced materials research and policies in higher education is explored. In other words, policies can shape the sustainability of the research ecosystem.

The term “advanced material” as one of the research focuses was first introduced in the regulation in 2007. It is mentioned by Law No.17 of 2007 on National Long-Term Development Plan 2005–2025 [72]. This regulation stressed seven research focuses for developing science and technology, with advanced materials as one of them. However, the more detailed direction of this “advanced material” can only be explained a few years later in the National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN 2015–2019), in 2014 [73]. It mentioned that AdMs focus on permanent magnets, rare earth elements, solid battery materials, and silicon-based materials. Although “graphene” is not mentioned straightforwardly in the regulation, it is highly likely to be found in research related to battery materials, sensors, fuel cells, solar cells, and many others. Universities, as research institutions, are the research actors; therefore, several policies related to them were investigated. Here, the policies or regulations considered to impact the research ecosystem are displayed in

Table 1. Regulation related to research, education, and innovation in Indonesia.

Year	Regulation	Description	Significance
2002	Law No. 18	on national system of the research, development, and application of science and technology	Defining many terminologies, systems, organizations, and procedures in research [74]
2005	Government Regulation No. 20	on obligations of intellectual property technology transfer of the R&D results produced by universities and R&D institutions	Encouraging institutions to establish a work unit responsible for carrying out the management of technology transfer of intellectual property [75]
2006	Government Regulation No. 41	on permit to conduct research and development activities for foreign universities, foreign research and development institute, foreign enterprises, and foreigners	Encourage research collaboration with foreign universities, foreign researchers [76]
2006	Presidential Regulation No. 5	on national energy policy	Introduce national’s goal on reducing fossil fuel [77]
2007	Law No. 30	on energy	Define the source of renewable energy
2007	Law No. 17	on National Long-Term Development Plan 2005–2025	Mentioned that the nation’s competitiveness is the increase of the mastery, expansion, and utilization of science and technology [72]
2007	Government Regulation No. 35	on allocating a part of business entity’s revenues to improve capability on innovation engineering and technology diffusion	Encourage the importance of research fund [78]
2010	Presidential Regulation No. 32	on National Innovation Commission	Coordinating innovation activities to increase national productivity [79]
2011	Ministerial Regulation, the Ministry of Finance No. 252/PMK.01/2011	on Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP)	Supporting research funds and scholarship for researchers [80]
2012	Law No. 12	on Higher Education	Defining state universities with legal entity status (PTN-BH), state universities with public service body status (PTN-BLU), and state universities with working unit status (PTN Satker) [81]
2015	Government Regulation No. 14	National Industry Development Master Plan (RIPIN) 2015–2035	Stating that one of the targets of industrial development achievement is the increased development of innovation and mastery of technology [82]
2015	Presidential Regulation No. 2	National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN 2015–2019)	Explaining the National Research Priorities (PRN) [73]
2015	Presidential Regulation No. 13	Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education	Merging Ministry of Research and Technology (Kemenristek) with the Directorate General of Higher Education (Dikti) [83]
2018	Presidential Regulation No. 38	National Research Master Plan 2017–2045 (RIRN)	Mentioned the focus research, included renewable energy and advanced material [84]

.

Based on the publication distribution on the affiliation (Section 3.3), a further investigation was conducted on universities’ status. The universities are classified based on Law No. 12 on Higher Education Institution (HEI). The HEIs, universities, are categorized into three groups: state universities with legal entity status (PTN-BH), state universities with public service body status (PTN-BLU), and state universities with work unit status (PTN satker). PTN-BH is the first rank, while PTN-BLU and PTN-Satker are second and third, respectively. Since the announcement of this policy, in 2013–2015, several universities have been transformed to PTN-BH. The rests are either still in PTN-Satker or PTN-BLU. The government set the requirement to fulfill if they want to change their status. There is a disparity between PTN-BH, PTN-BLU, and PTN Satker. This policy determines the research actors and their support unit and brings the highest impact on research productivity. PTN-BH is a top-tier higher educationa; institution and is privileged with autonomy to manage its resources, budget, and finance. Moreover, in terms of research funding, they also receive a block grant from the government [85,86]. The more detailed information of the main characteristics of HEI based on their status is explained in

Table 2. Main characteristics differences between PTN Satker, PTN-BLU, and PTN-BH [87].

Component	PTN Satker	PTN BLU	PTN BH
Status	the working unit of a ministry	the working unit of a ministry	Legal Entity
Management authority	no authority in managing funds received from the community	has authority in managing funds received from the community	broad authority in academic and non-academic
Budgeting	based on PTN Satker strategic plan, proposed to the parent ministry	based on PTN BLU strategic plan, proposed to the parent ministry	based on PTN BH strategic plan, stipulated by the Board of Trustees
Revenue	all revenue received from the community should be deposited to the government	all revenue received from the community should be deposited to the government	Self-management
Tariff	proposed by PTN-Satker to the Ministry of Finance	proposed by PTN-BLU to the Ministry of Finance	the chancellor has the authority to set tariff
Assets management	through the approval of the Minister of Finance	through the approval of the Minister of Finance	has authority except for land which is owned by the government
financial inspection and supervision	audited by National Government Internal Auditor (BPKP)	audited by National Government Internal Auditor (BPKP)	external auditor (BPK) or public accountant

.

Table 3. General information of PTN-BH universities and their productivity of graphene publication.

No	PTN-BH Universities	Transformation Year	Document in Scopus	First-Year in Graphene Publication	Average Graphene Publication Number
					2010 to Transformation Year	After Transformation Year to Present
1	ITB	2013	121	2011	0.5	14.9
2	UI	2013	78	2014	0.0	9.8
3	Unair	2014	50	2016	0.0	7.1
4	Unpad	2015	40	2014	0.5	6.2
5	ITS	2015	49	2013	0.7	7.5
6	UGM	2013	37	2010	0.5	4.4
7	USU	2014	19	2017	0.0	2.7
8	UPI	2014	12	2013	0.0	1.7
9	IPB	2013	10	2018	0.0	1.3

shows the general information of the universities which transformed to PTN BH and its impact on graphene publications. It can be observed that most of the universities that have transformed their status to PTN-BH showed a significant increase in average graphene publications.

4. Discussion

The finding of the six-year knowledge gap of AdMs research represented graphene in Figure 2 is crucial information and can be adopted as a base in evaluating the development of Indonesia. It can be simply used to assess how far Indonesia lags behind in material research and technology. Indonesia’s researchers are in the front row in accelerating knowledge transfer. They are always expected to keep updated in material research and technology. Thus, the approach in assessing graphene research in this work can also be adapted to reveal the knowledge gap in other fields of AdMs. It can be observed from Figure 3, Indonesia’s publication in graphene research has rapidly developed in recent years. The extraordinary pathway was in 2018, where 108 documents were published. Further analysis can explain this phenomenon; in 2017, a lot of research was devoted to graphene synthesis and its modification with other materials. Therefore, in 2018, more research was published as a follow-up of 2017’s result; the researchers started using it in various applications, such as solar cells, water purification, gas sensing, and battery. It is the first time to display more than 100 publications. Only two years after that, in 2020, the highest publication rate was achieved by exhibiting 167 documents. In other words, the average publication rate of 2016–2020 was 99 documents per year. The publication in 2021 is still going. It is expected to have a lower number than the total publication of a year before because of limited conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In a normal situation, the researchers believe that the total productivity of 2021 will be much higher than that of 2020, and possibly a new record will emerge.

Based on the publication type in Figure 4, room for quality improvement remains a challenge. It is indicated by the distribution of documents type, which is dominated by conference papers for a 50% share, followed by journal articles for 47%. It is known that journal publishing is more challenging. First, the research result displayed in the journal should be more comprehensive; hence, more experiments are mandatory. Second, the peer-review stage after journal submission is more demanding. The feedback from reviewers and authors’ arguments or responses is consuming time, and sometimes it demands some additional experiments. Moreover, after manuscripts are accepted, authors still have to wait for some time. On the contrary, the conference paper is a faster way of making publication. The peer-review process for the conference paper is not as rigorous as that of the journal article. As a result, the publication per year of the journal article is not as massive as the conference paper. In fact, the trend for publishing conference papers was already down in 2019. It can be assumed that in the pandemic, most conference events have been canceled or postponed. Thus, the researcher focused on journal publication.

Figure 5 and Figure 6 enhanced the investigation; the publication is explored based on its affiliation and geographical location, respectively. One can conclude that affiliations in Java Island contributed to 93% of Indonesia’s graphene research publications. This finding represents the actual condition of development in Indonesia. It confirms that the socio-economic development of Indonesia is centralized in Java Island. Many universities on this island are privileged with most research facilities, funding, and high-quality researchers. Finally, this region has become the home for notable universities and research institutions, particularly those possessing materials science and engineering disciplines. Eventually, universities can also potentially impact sustainable regional economies in numerous ways. The existence of universities will bring a so-called ‘milieu’, or colocation effect [88]. The universities may be able to act as a substitute for agglomeration economies by encouraging scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to reside in areas where there is a concentration of highly educated who are doing research and employed by the university [89].

VOSviewer visualization of the cluster research evolution is shown in Figure 7. In earlier periods, not many researchers developed graphene materials. The research was mostly related to very fundamental aspects such as simulation and superficial characterization. Over time, the researchers developed into broader and more diverse topics. In other words, the graphene research ecosystem was growing. Based on the 2016–2021 period, industries were expected to collaborate with universities in accelerating graphene research towards real application. Keywords in this period indicated that graphene had already been introduced in battery, solar cells, and water remediation applications. International research collaboration is one strategy that can increase the quantity and quality of scientific publications. It can be stated that the more collaborations are arranged among cross-country researchers, the more productivity for publications is possible. Figure 8 shows that Indonesia has built international collaborations especially with its neighbors. Malaysia, Japan, and Taiwan are the top three international partners in graphene research. It can be seen that Malaysia is the most favorite partner, supported mainly by its location, similar culture, and language. Therefore, Japan and Taiwan are in second and third positions. Interestingly, although Singapore’s location is very close to Indonesia, it is shown in the fourth rank of collaborators. It can be seen that collaboration with Singapore only delivered 28 documents, which is equal to 24% of Malaysia’s contribution. In addition, a relatively close neighbor, Australia, also showed only 19 documents. Several countries that represent various distances from Indonesia display a relatively similar document number. Therefore, aside from location, culture, and language, a preference in forming collaborations is also influenced by knowledge level. It is believed that most research in Singapore universities is relatively advanced compared to that of Indonesia’s. For instance, it is reported that Singapore was already familiar with graphene research in 2005 [90]. Hence, the research level or knowledge gap is crucial in forming collaborations. The country tends to form collaborations with other countries with a similar knowledge level.

Eventually, all the findings above, knowledge gap, publication, distribution, and research evolution, show the correlation with policy or regulation, especially those influencing higher education institutions as research actors. We argue that, from those aforementioned regulations, the regulation most significantly affecting and supporting the research ecosystem started in 2011—notably, Law No. 12 of 2012, which classified the entity of higher education in Indonesia into three categories PTN-BH, PTN-BLU and PTN-Satker. PTN-BH universities have fundamental characteristics that are different from other universities in Indonesia in terms of financial autonomy and management authority. These characteristics enable PTN-BH to provide the research ecosystem needed to research advanced materials such as graphene.

The regulation delivers the privilege PTN-BH in terms of research funding and budgetary autonomies, PTN-BH receives a block grant from the government. Moreover, they can comfortably allocate to recruit many Ph.Ds as staff, invest in laboratories, open various research grant schemes to their researchers, and many other actions that PTN-BLU or PTN-Satker institutions cannot compete with. It can be confirmed by combining Figure 5 and Table 3, PTN-BH universities contribute to nine of the top 17 institutions that show high productivity in graphene research. Furthermore, Table 3 shows a significant increase in graphene publication number after the universities transformed their status to PTN-BH. It is also confirmed by Figure 7d, that PTN-BH universities displayed their hegemony in the research network during 2016–2021. They were seen as dominant, having many clusters that work in either collaboration or independently. In addition, it is noteworthy that those PTN-BH universities are mainly located on Java Island. As a result, Indonesian publications on graphene are also concentrated there. This is in line with the principal-agent theory. Enders et al. reported that based on the principal-agent theory, a university would be able to perform well, including its research performance if it has autonomy [91]. This report showed that campus autonomy in the Netherlands, which increases the support of substantial financial resources and higher education management capabilities, will improve university performance. Hence, the results of this study strengthen the findings of Enders et al. that government policies that direct campus autonomy can also enhance the performance of higher education institutions, in this case, research performance, in the context of developing countries.

5. Conclusions

A comprehensive research mapping based on the total publication of 667 documents obtained for a decade (2010–2021) has been produced. The starting point of graphene research occurred in 2010, six years after its invention. Based on publication type, 50% of the documents were contributed as conference papers. It indicates that the quality improvement in research by shifting to journal publication would be considered as significant progress. Future research may focus on directing its approach toward application. From a geographical perspective, research institutions located on Java Island played an important role by contributing 93% (535 documents) of Indonesia’s graphene publications. Interestingly, this percentage was donated by most universities that are categorized as PTN-BH. In addition, PTN-BH researchers’ network is more prominent and well-connected compared to that of the other categories. International collaboration was also formed, with Malaysia as the most favorite counterpart by contributing 114 co-authorships. It clearly indicates that location, culture, language, and research-level strongly impact formed collaborations. Finally, the findings of all publication aspects have a relationship with government policies, especially Law No. 12 of 2012. The dominance of PTN-BH universities in graphene research indicates that policies that dictate the formation of university characteristics such as PTN-BH’s will encourage advanced materials research. These characteristics are better than that of PTN-Satker dan PTN-BLU. More clearly, the characteristics needed to facilitate the achievement of graphene research in developing countries such as Indonesia are management authority and budgetary autonomy. Thus, in developing countries, higher education policies must be encouraged to form universities with these characteristics. In the global context, all developing countries can use the approach of this work as a benchmark or reference when assessing the role of higher education policies on the sustainability of their advanced material research and their socio-economic development. The government’s role, hence the policies, is inevitable and necessary for the sustainability of advanced materials research. The sustainability of research itself can lead to enhanced economic development prospects.