Universitas Syiah Kuala (Unsyiah) participated in the SPIRE (Erasmus+ Project Strategic IP Management for R&I in Asian Higher Education) conference and coordinator meeting, held by UTM, Malaysia. The event were conducted from 28-29 November 2019 at the Higher Education Leadership Academy (AKEPT), Lebuh Enstek, 71760 Bandar Enstek, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. As a platform to interlink and enhance IP exploitation innovation and knowledge creativity in the arena of research, innovation, and commercialization, the “Erasmus+: Strategic IP Management for Effective R&I in Asian Higher Education (SPIRE)”, the program funded by the European Union had managed to achieve the objective of strengthening the knowledge and skills of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) on the implementation of consistent IP strategy and the provision of comprehensive IP services.

Three participants from Unsyiah (Dr. Abdullah, Dr. Sri Walny Rahayu, and Zulfadhli, ST., MT.) presented their papers entitled: 1) “Roles of IPR Center at Syiah Kuala University in Assisting Researchers in Innovation and Invention”; 2) “Aceh's Songs and Dances at Traditional Cultural Expressions and Their Inheritance Legal System in Indonesia”; and 3) “Efforts to Improve Public Services to Increase the Number of IPRS in Higher Education’. The committees informed that all papers will be published in selected international journal or international proceedings after being reviewed by reviewers.

The conference were attended by several universities and countries involved in the SPIRE Project such as Agora (Spain), Turku University (Finland), Unibo, Bologna (Italy), MU, Czech; UTM and MMU (Malaysia), Chulalongkorn dan Burapha University (Thailand), Mindanao and The Philipines University (the Philippines) and ITS and Unsyiah (Indonesia). Besides that, the papers presented also from other universities in Malasysia such as UPM and UTHM. This conference was opened by Prof. Dr. Shamsul Sahibuddin as the Pro-Vice Chancellor, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) KL Campus. The conference was conducted for two days. At the dinner event, several traditional dances from Malaysia were performed. Prof. Dr. Ir. Samadi, M.Sc as the coordinator for SPIRE Project at Unsyiah stated that for the sustainability of this program, SPIRE will establish a consortium of IP managers at the ASEAN level. Further activities for the consortium will be discussed at the final SPIRE meeting in the Philippines University, Manila in the beginning of January 2020.