The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has launched a research facilitation scheme for the acquisition of local knowledge for preserving and documenting local wisdom, the agency’s head, Laksana Tri Handoko, has said.

“This is our effort to explore and document various local wisdom and knowledge that exists in all corners of our country,” Handoko informed at a webinar on the facilitation and funding of research and innovation here on Tuesday.

The exploration and documentation of local wisdom and knowledge can also provide material that sparks the creativity of researchers at BRIN, he said.

Local knowledge documentation is a hint for researchers for developing innovative products, he remarked. For instance, as per local wisdom, the leaves of certain plants have properties that can reduce heat, Handoko said.

Building from local knowledge on a plant’s benefits, researchers can study and conduct further analysis to find more potential uses for the plant such as developing certain drugs like standardized herbal medicines (OHT) and phytopharmaca, he elaborated.

The acquisition of local knowledge is aimed at ensuring all local wisdom from the country can be documented, preserved, and passed down to the next generation, he said.

“The current forms of documentation are books and audiovisuals,” he noted.

While stressing the importance of proper documentation, he said that most local knowledge in Indonesia has only been passed on orally from generation to generation and has not been well documented.

Therefore, he said he feared that local wisdom, which could provide clues for medicine development from a potential plant, would disappear if not documented properly.

Local wisdom can be documented in the form of published or audiovisual books, which can provide valuable information that researchers can follow up with more advanced research, he added.

Source: Antara News