Jakarta, 10 November 2025 — Coinciding with the commemoration of Heroes Day, Prof. Dr. Teguh Kurniawan, S.Sos., M.Sc., a lecturer and Vice Dean for Education, Research, and Student Affairs at the Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Universitas Indonesia (FIA UI), emphasized that the co-creation approach is highly suitable to be adopted as a primary strategy for enhancing regional economies in Indonesia.

Prof. Teguh Kurniawan, who also serves as Head of Team 2 of the UI Patriot Expedition for the Palolo Transmigration Area, conveyed this perspective as a speaker in the In Motion Talk session at the Transmigration Update Forum 2025. The event was organized by the Directorate General of Economic Development and Community Empowerment, Ministry of Transmigration of the Republic of Indonesia. The session delivered by Prof. Teguh carried the theme Adaptive Localism: Collaboration for a Resilient and Competitive Economy.

In his presentation, Prof. Teguh Kurniawan emphasized that co-creation offers a more participatory, inclusive, and contextual approach to addressing contemporary governance challenges, particularly in village and transmigration contexts. This approach is considered more progressive than the Triple/Quadruple Helix model, which tends to be elitist and focused on formal structures.

This line of thinking is supported by two major research outcomes, namely the GoGreen Project and the UI Patriot Expedition (TEP UI). The GoGreen Project is a global collaborative research initiative led by Prof. Jacob Torfing and Prof. Eva Sørensen from Roskilde University together with Prof. Chris Ansell, with Prof. Teguh serving as the Team Leader for the GoGreen Project Indonesia. Meanwhile, the UI Patriot Expedition (TEP UI) is an empirical study conducted in the Palolo Transmigration Area (KT Palolo), Sigi Regency, Central Sulawesi Province, which produced the Institutional Economic Collaboration Model Design as its main output.

Co-creation, as part of Collaborative Governance, involves various actors—including government, scientists, the private sector, and grassroots actors (lay actors) such as citizens and communities—in distributed actions to solve problems. Its objective is to stimulate mutual learning and bottom-up innovation.

The main distinction lies in the objectives, where co-creation focuses on generating innovative solutions derived from real needs and supported broadly, while co-production places greater emphasis on mobilizing competencies to implement solutions that have already been predetermined.

The study by the UI TEP Team highlights the significant potential of the Palolo strategic area, covering 57,570.030 hectares in Sigi Regency. This area possesses leading commodities such as coffee, cocoa, vanilla, orchids, horticulture, and livestock, which are categorized as “Green Gold” (coffee, cocoa, vanilla, candlenut) and “Hidden Gold” (orchids and conservation-based ecotourism). These potentials are considered capable of driving local economic growth based on sustainable resources.

To optimize these potentials, the UI team proposed the implementation of the Integrated Institutional Economic Development Model (IIEDM), an integrated development model that combines four approaches—New Institutional Economics (NIE), Social Capital (SC), Economic Regional Development (ERD), and Local Economic Development (LED). This model emphasizes the importance of synergy between the strength of community social networks and adaptive institutional policies to achieve inclusive and sustainable economic development in Palolo.

The tactical co-creation strategy in Palolo includes several key steps. First, activating the Sigi Hijau Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Forum (FKMP) as an official institutional platform to carry out metagovernance functions and reduce transaction costs. Second, optimizing the role of local innovators such as Gampiri Interaksi Lestari and RaRe Koffie as innovation laboratories for sustainable practices and farmer group training.

In addition, the strategy underscores the importance of inclusion and empowerment of vulnerable actors, particularly Beginner Farmer Groups, as well as strengthening downstream processing through agroforestry systems and support for local small and medium industries. Finally, implementation is carried out through a blended financing scheme that integrates funding sources from the government, farmers, and the private sector.

Prof. Teguh Kurniawan stressed that the success of long-term collaboration depends on systemic co-creation, which encompasses joint problem framing, joint solution design, and shared implementation. He likened the co-creation model to an orchestra, in which the government, through the FKMP, acts as the conductor ensuring that every instrument—government agencies, the private sector, and farmers—plays in harmony to achieve cohesion.

According to him, although each party has different roles and agendas, mutual interdependence will create a symphony of sustainable solutions. The success of collaboration in Palolo is measured by increased farmer income, improvements in regenerative environmental conditions, and the institutional capacity to continuously learn and adapt.