A team from UQ (Sonia Roitman from Planning and Peter Walters from Social Science) has started a research project in collaboration with BRIN (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, National Research and Innovation Agency) and Universitas Indonesia on the social impacts of the development of Nusantara, the new capital city of Indonesia. Dr Rusli Cahyadi (UQ Planning PhD graduate from BRIN) and Prof Imam Ardhianto from UI are the main Indonesian partners. We are also collaborating with Institut Teknologi Kalimantan, a local university.

Nusantara (or IKN -Ibu Kota Negara- capital city) is currently being developed in East Kalimantan, in the district of Sepaku. It is near the city of Balikpapan.

At the moment, most of the work is on road construction. The first government agencies will move to IKN in 2024 and the city will be ‘inaugurated’ on 17 August 2024. We visited Titik Nol Nusantara, the point zero of IKN, and people from Bali were doing an offering and giving prayers.

The project is funded by the UQ Global Engagement Seed Fund, the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, in addition to funding from BRIN.