# From Faculty Initiatives to Institutional Alliance: UGM and King’s College London Move Toward Formalizing Partnership
**Source**: https://oia.ugm.ac.id/2026/02/23/from-faculty-initiatives-to-institutional-alliance-ugm-and-kings-college-london-move-toward-formalizing-partnership/
**Parent**: https://oia.ugm.ac.id/highlights/
On Thursday, 12 February 2026, the Office of International Affairs Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) welcomed a delegation from King’s College London (KCL) for an institutional visit held at the OIA UGM Office, F-13 Bulaksumur. The KCL delegation was represented by Edward Danks and Suneeta Nathan, members of the university’s regional engagement team covering China, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The meeting served as an initial strategic discussion to explore potential avenues for strengthening academic and research collaboration between the two institutions.
The visit reflected a shared commitment to deepening institutional ties and identifying concrete frameworks at the university level after years of collaborative work initiated by the faculty members at UGM and KCL. Discussions began with an overview of UGM’s global engagement strategy and its priorities in expanding partnerships with leading global universities. Both sides emphasized the importance of developing structured, sustainable collaboration models that align with institutional forte and national priorities.
A central theme of the meeting was the exploration of joint educational partnerships, especially within the Double Degree (DD) scheme. Both UGM and KCL expressed strong interest in advancing collaboration through structured academic pathways such as the 1+1 and 2+2 models. Tyas Ikhsan Hikmawan, Ph.D., the Head of the Office of International Affairs UGM, noted that these schemes are well aligned with Indonesia’s current higher education landscape, particularly with the expansion of the LPDP government-supported scholarship mechanisms that encourage double degree arrangements in priority research clusters.
As one of UGM faculty members who has ongoing collaboration with KCL, Dr. Abdul Wahid, the Head of History Department at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences joined the meeting to emphasize the existing and strong people to people connection between the two institutions. Dr. Wahid and his counterparts at KCL are currently working on a collaborative project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) entitled “Actually Existing Development: Twentieth Century International Development and the Global South (DEVHIST)”. DEVHIST will be the first project to systematically examine the encounters between individuals, groups and worldviews that both attended and often reshaped international development at points of implementation across the Global South, from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Beyond the institutional dimension, the prospective cooperation between UGM and King’s College London also reflects a broader trajectory of Indonesia’s growing engagement with leading global universities, including members of the Russell Group. In January, Indonesia’s President met with representatives of 10 prominent UK higher education institutions, signaling a national-level commitment to strengthening educational diplomacy and research collaboration between Indonesia and the United Kingdom.
In furtherance of the dialogue, the two institutions agreed to engage relevant faculties and departments to define priority fields and pathways for collaboration moving forward. This bespoke approach is expected to lay foundations for Universitas Gadjah Mada and King’s College London to cultivate a partnership that is both strategically aligned and responsive to the evolving needs of higher education and research. (Adnan/OIA)