Introduction

Indonesian universities are now facing a mandatory requirement for candidates to publish a paper in English in an international journal before a PhD degree can be awarded (Directorate Generale of Higher Education-Indonesian Ministry of Education [DGHE], 2012). The introduction of this requirement follows a similar action in China, where the bar is set higher at a journal indexed in the Science Citation Index or equivalent for candidates in the sciences (Li, 2006). This new requirement adds considerably to the already strong pressure experienced by Indonesian academic supervisors/advisors to achieve international publications and citations themselves (Sanjaya, Sitawati & Suciani, 2015), especially in the natural and life sciences (Hanauer & Englander, 2013). A factor that can be expected to contribute to the pressure is the limited nature of instruction in English for Academic Purposes [EAP] for both undergraduate and graduate students (Sadtono, 2001), especially as regards academic writing. There is thus a need to investigate how Indonesian academics are adapting to this additional pressure, as well as to test new educational initiatives for strengthening the skills of both mentors and authors in Indonesia when writing for publication in English. Such an initiative is the CIPSE [Collaborative Interdisciplinary Publication Skills Education] training approach. Developed by Cargill and O'connor for use with early-career science researchers and implemented successfully in a range of Chinese contexts (Cargill, 2011; Cargill & O'Connor, 2012), this approach features the integration of perspectives from science, applied linguistics and education. However, a range of context-specific differences may affect its suitability for use in the Indonesian higher education setting. Overall, little research has been published to date investigating the challenges faced by Indonesian supervisors and their graduate students in this new context, or moves to help address the challenges. Here we contribute to addressing this lack by reporting on an invited intervention (a five-day CIPSE workshop) delivered to a cohort of staff from one faculty of a highly ranked Indonesian university in 2014, and a follow-up study with participants 12 months later.

A strength of the project design was that it built on an existing network based on scientific and educational collaborations over 20 years, which was expected to help overcome the potential pitfall of ‘one-shot’ professional development programs (Cannon & Hore, 1997).