Speakers

Event Details

Current discussions on sustainability are largely dominated by debates on green and blue energy, alongside environmental conservation. Much less attention, however, has been paid to the sustainability of people, knowledge production, and people-to-people relations—dimensions without which visions of sustainability remain incomplete. The Indonesian Young Academy of Science (ALMI) and the De Jong Academy (The Netherlands) take these often-overlooked issues as a starting point for collaboration in an interdisciplinary research project that examines the mental well-being of knowledge producers—researchers and academics in both countries. Engaging critically with global debates on the neoliberalization of higher education, which prioritize metrics and individual productivity over collective care, and privilege certain fields of study over others, this collaboration highlights the mounting pressures within academia in both Indonesia and the Netherlands. At the same time, it maps the culturally nuanced causes of academic stress and identifies strategies of coping across different contexts. Together, these findings underscore the urgent need for stakeholders to formulate and implement measures that safeguard the sustainability of knowledge production by ensuring not only healthy productivity but also the diversity and well-being of the people who sustain it.