In 2011, SMERU staff was fully settled in at the new office in Cikini. This was marked by the resumption of our annual strategic meeting, which was held during a SMERU staff retreat in September in Bandung. In 2010, this activity was suspended due to our focus on moving and adjusting to the new office. In this year’s meeting, we focused on reviewing SMERU’s existing standard operating procedures (SOP) document. After more than ten years, it was considered necessary to have a complete review of the entire document.

Currently, SMERU’s SOP document consists of 11 chapters, covering procedures on general administration, accounting and finance, investment management, procurement of goods and services, research, business travel, publication, information and technology systems, library, personnel regulation, and cooperation with third parties. The document serves as the guideline for all SMERU staff in carrying out their work activities. To create a sense of ownership of the SMERU SOP, it was deemed necessary to involve the entire staff in their formulation and adjustment. In addition to this, the staff retreat was an opportunity to strengthen the bonds among staff. After one or two years of continuous work, personal bonds between staff may start to fade. The retreat revived feelings of unity and cooperation among staff through team building activities. The overall aim of the event was to invigorate staff to face new challenges and continue to move SMERU forward as the premier socioeconomic research institute in Indonesia.

On the final day of the retreat, SMERU staff was involved in a social service to the community at Pakuhaji Elementary School in Kecamatan Ngamprah, Kabupaten Bandung Barat. This involvement reflects our utmost belief in the importance of education in improving social welfare. All SMERU staff worked together with teachers and students to clean the school’s classrooms and other facilities, built up a library, and supplied teaching materials and equipment that were needed by the school. At the end of the social service activity, everybody felt exhausted but satisfied with their work.

Nearing the end of the year, SMERU was required to be reviewed as part of its agreement with AusAID on the provision of core funding support, which was set to end in March 2012. For this purpose, AusAID commissioned an independent completion report of its financial support for SMERU. In addition to reviewing SMERU’s documents and interviewing the management and staff, the reviewers—Julie Hind and Gatot Widayanto—also interviewed 31 stakeholders who had detailed knowledge of SMERU and its activities. In their final report to AusAID, the reviewers highlighted SMERU’s continued strong progress towards the objectives of its core funding and recognized it as a well-developed organization that needs to further develop its business and management acumen. To face the future, the reviewers recommended that SMERU develop and implement a business development strategy, undertake an internal review of workloads and its quality assurance processes, put in place more stringent project management practices, implement a full cost recovery of projects, implement improved budget setting and monitoring processes, strengthen its capacity to bridge research and policy, improve its performance appraisal system, and strengthen its efforts in the area of monitoring and evaluation. The whole review process has been a very useful learning experience for SMERU’s management and staff. The recommendations provided to SMERU will be implemented gradually over time and will help us to continue to develop into the future.

Finally, I would like to thank all of SMERU’s stakeholders for their continued support. Personally, I am also very grateful to the entire SMERU staff and members of the SMERU Board of Trustees and Board of Supervisors, whose strong commitment has made it possible for SMERU to develop into a well-established institute.