Makassar, February , 2026
The PELITA Project (Understanding the Education and Labor Market Consequences of Indonesia’s Quest to Become the World’s Leading Nurse Exporting Nation) held its first meeting with the full PELITA team online via the Zoom platform on Thursday, February 12, 2026, beginning at 20:25 WITA. The meeting lasted approximately 48 minutes and was attended by research team members from LMU Munich (Germany), Universitas Hasanuddin, the Australian National University (ANU), Universitas Airlangga, and all field research team members. This activity involved 12 participants, consisting of the Pelita Leader, Prof. Dr. Julia Lohmann; Principal Investigators, Prof. Rini Rachmawaty, Prof. Ferry Efendi, and Prof. Firman Witoelar; Research Assistants, Ani Ilmi Auli, Eliana Chavarría Pino, Tri Yatmi, Hafidah Amiruddin and Nursindia A. Sugoro; and Research Administrators, Muh. Fadhil Ichsan Jaya and Anisa Salsabila.
The main agenda included the Advisory Panel engagement strategy, schedule for face-to-face meetings, research protocols and ethics, data management, and team collaboration infrastructure.
One of the main agenda items discussed in depth was the strategy for managing the project’s Advisory Panel. The team discussed the importance of consistent panel member attendance at each meeting, including whether representatives or delegates from the same institution could be accepted when a primary member is unable to attend. It was agreed that Advisory Panel meetings would be maintained and held annually to obtain input and direction.
Regarding the schedule for upcoming meetings, the team agreed on several important agendas. The Advisory Panel meeting is planned for early April 2026, and Prof. Rini and Prof. Ferry Efendi were asked to propose several possible dates. A full team face-to-face meeting is scheduled for June 13–17, 2026 in Surabaya, with the aim of introducing all team members in person, conducting training on the qualitative study component, and developing qualitative research questions and instruments.
During the research protocol and ethics session, Prof. Julia reported that the draft protocol is still being finalized. Each team member was asked to complete the participant recruitment and informed consent sections according to their respective study components. The target for completing the draft protocol was set for the end of March 2026, while the ethics submission to LMU Munich is scheduled to begin in May–June 2026, with an estimated processing time of at least two months. For international partners conducting research in Indonesia, the team also discussed the need for approval from BRIN (National Research and Innovation Agency), with an estimated processing time of 1–2 months. The policy analysis component coordinated by Prof. Rini does not require ethics approval, but needs to be started earlier given its time-sensitive nature.
One of the significant achievements reported at this meeting was the approval from the Rector and Vice Rector of Universitas Hasanuddin (UNHAS) for the use of the REDCap system as an online survey platform. The UNHAS IT Director has assigned staff for the installation process, and all technical requirements have been met. This makes PELITA the first study at UNHAS to install and use REDCap. The team emphasized the importance of ensuring that data does not move to foreign servers, particularly US-based servers, in order to comply with data protection regulations. A budget for IT support staff of IDR 2,500,000 per month for 2–3 months was also agreed upon, with a total estimated cost of IDR 5,000,000 to IDR 7,500,000 for the entire support period.
The participant identification and tracking system was also a topic of considerable discussion given the longitudinal nature of the PELITA study. The team discussed various options for using the Student Identification Number (NIM) or the National Identity Number (NIK) as identifiers, taking into account privacy risks and data security. It was agreed that the linkage file connecting participants’ true identities with study codes would be held solely by Prof. Rini. The final decision on the best identification system was delegated to Prof. Rini, with consideration of the local context and field conditions in Indonesia.
Project data governance was also discussed comprehensively. All team members working with data are required to sign a data management agreement. A detailed plan is also needed regarding data access rights, security protocols for interview transcription, and long-term data storage policies at each university. The team agreed that data may be made publicly available upon request from other researchers with appropriate consent, and compliance with both Indonesian and German data protection regulations must be ensured in all cross-country data sharing processes. For qualitative interviews, it was agreed that face-to-face methods are strongly preferred; if not possible, Zoom may be used with recording to local devices not to the cloud to avoid data transfer.
In the final session, the team agreed on a biweekly routine meeting schedule every Thursday at 17:00 WITA via Zoom, with an adjustment during the month of Ramadan to 18:15 WIB. Meetings will continue even if some members are unable to attend, and will resume after Eid al-Fitr. In terms of collaboration infrastructure, research protocols will be uploaded to Google Docs to be edited and commented on by all team members, while temporary document sharing will continue via email or Google Drive until all members have official institutional email accounts.
The next meeting is scheduled two weeks later, on Thursday at 17:00 WITA. All follow-up actions were agreed to be addressed promptly, with the primary target of completing the research protocol by the end of March 2026 as the basis for ethics submission and preparation for field data collection planned to begin in August 2026.
