Gorontalo - The Decree of the Director of Research, Technology and Community Service Number 1350/E5/PG.02.00/2023 on December 28, 2023, concerning Stipulation of Higher Education Clustering based on Research and Community Service Performance unfolded Universitas Negeri Gorontalo as one of the higher education in Eastern Indonesia in the Mandiri Cluster.

UNG Rector, Prof. Dr. Ir. Eduart Wolok, S.T., M.T. said UNG’s inclusion in the best cluster resulted from lecturers and students’ good performance in research and community service.

"This achievement is also proof of the commitment of being an Excellent and Competitive Community Campus to advance the Tomini Bay Region," he said.

In 2024, the higher education clustering is based on processed SINTA-based tertiary education performance data from 2020 to 2022. The performance data taken into account include data that have been verified and validated by the verifier of the Higher Education Research and Community Service Institute (LPPM), including the author’s data (author, affiliation, article, research, community service, intellectual property rights, and book)

This clustering is not a ranking but a grouping of higher education according to their performance qualifications as a basis for preparing research road maps and strategic plans and determining the authority to manage research and community service in higher education.

Higher education clustering as a method for identifying, measuring performance and grouping higher education institutions is expected to accelerate higher education performance through collaboration schemes that unite and synergize the potential of higher education institutions through collaboration between higher education institutions across clusters in improving the quality of research and community service.

Concurrently, the Directorate General of Higher Education, Research and Technology, through the Directorate of Research, Technology and Community Service, congratulated all universities for their achievements in research and community service programs.

Prof. Eduart expressed that this performance must be improved as being in the top five in Eastern Indonesia should not be the peak and there must be an annual improvement. He added that the number of national-scale research must be greater and so is research with practical output in solving problems in the community.

"Currently, UNG's challenges are increasingly diverse as it is in a strategic regional position which inevitably has to be maximized in quantity, let alone the quality of research and community service. For example, serious challenges are poverty, unemployment, and malnutrition rates. So, there is a need for more research to respond to these challenges and community service schemes must be more efficient, effective and participatory," concluded Prof. Eduart.