The world today faces many interconnected and serious challenges. In the fast-paced technological age, we are attempting to build social equity, public health, cultural enlightenment, and economic development, all for a growing population, and with an overwhelming need to protect and restore our natural environment. Indonesia feels these tensions intensely, as it is home to the world’s fourth largest national population. Indonesia has a wealth of cultural diversity with over 1000 ethnic groups spread across distributed habitats and infrastructures in the world’s largest archipelagic nation of 17,000 islands. Indonesia has the world’s richest marine biodiversity and the largest natural capital in the form of irrecoverable carbon stocks in its rainforests, peatlands, mangroves, and oceans.
We believe that a modern centre of learning should have significant impacts on these problems and the quest for better lives for all.
Our approach is a new campus in Bali, the United In Diversity Bali Campus (UIDBC), a world class destination for education, research, innovation, healthcare, and environmental sustainability.
The campus hosts our own programs and uses the convening power of Bali and a reputation for excellence to attract talent as we create programs with others. In the future, the campus will be encompassed by a TechPark with the full ecosystem of entrepreneurship, industry, and groundbreaking research centres. The campus builds on the culture of Bali, including its artistic, harmonious, and spiritual traditions. Our campus is already host to the Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center (Tsinghua SEA), the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network for Southeast Asia, the Tri Hita Karana Forum, and the Global Blended Finance Institute for Sustainable Development.
The campus is not just one more university – Indonesia and the world already have many. The campus is a special kind of higher educational institution, united in diversity.
Its outcomes will include graduates who can think critically, are open to new insights, able to collaborate with multi-stakeholders, and willing to co-create and contribute to solving pressing challenges.
The central notion of UIDBC culture is Harmony. This derives from the Balinese tradition of Tri Hita Karana: harmony within society, harmony with nature and spiritual harmony. The home of the campus, Kura Kura Island in Bali, is ideally situated for collaboration in taking on and solving local challenges.
The three principles of Tri Hita Karana are ancient but seem very relevant to current global emergencies. We aim to encourage individual and community actions that give a fairer, healthier, and happier future for all, and for generations to come.
The mission and goals of UIDBC are highly aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). In fact they map well to the three aspects of the Tri Hita Karana, as shown in the figure above.
Of the 17 SDGs, we aspire to have a long-term impact on the first ten goals that can be viewed as elements of human happiness and societal sustainability: no poverty, zero hunger, good health, quality education, gender equality, water, energy, work, innovation, and reduced inequality.
The next five SDGs, which the Tri Hita Karana calls harmony with nature, are currently the primary domains of our programs: cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, and life below water and on land. Our actions are guided by the harmony with spirit and culture, represented in the SDGs by peace and partnerships for humanity’s common fate. The aim is to give students the tools to build sustainable natural ecosystems and sustainable civil societies.
The outcomes and contributions focus on creative approaches to these goals. Our primary outcome is talented learners, fellows, and graduates who are empowered to understand these goals and help to make changes for good. They learn to engage their minds, hands, and hearts. They learn ‘how’ to think and not ‘what’ to think.
A strength of UIDBC is our ability to facilitate learning through reflective and contemplative methods based on critical thinking. UIDBC builds on the highly successful programs of the umbrella organization, United In Diversity (UID). These include professional programs such as IDEAS (Innovative Dynamic Education and Action for Sustainability) with scholars from the MIT Sloan School of Management and the HDX programme which attracts top tier academics from around the world to teach long term urban solutions.
At UIDBC we value a unique blend of ways of thinking, doing, and believing. Critical thinking and healthy scepticism are central to all learning. In addition, our community will employ four other C’s:
Nestled at the heart of Kura Kura Bali, UID Bali Campus represents one of the key major elements and the development and its long-term strategic masterplan. It aims to provide an outstanding social and physical environment in which learning, research, and innovation will flourish.
Spread across 5Ha and with a sensitive consideration of culture, nature, and sustainability, the campus will offer a balanced mix of green open spaces and parks, residential accommodations, academic spaces, facilities, and social amenities.
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