How seriously is Indonesia doing research on Brain-Computer Interface?

My previous blog post is about Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research in Bandung, Indonesia (1,2,3). The research is conducted in School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (STEI) at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB). I know some people who has taken part in this Bandung BCI research. However, I wonder what and how are the research outcomes.

Below is the figure of literature study of EEG-based BCI between 2007 and 2011 from Hwang, et al in 2013. The paper is "EEG-Based Brain-Computer Interfaces: A Thorough Literature Survey" in International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 29: 814-826 (doi), from Taylor & Francis. The authors are Han-Jeong Hwang, Soobeom Choi and Chang-Hwam Im from Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea, and Soyoung Kim from University of Rochester, New York, USA.

The figure above shows the nationalities of the authors of EEG-based BCI articles between 2007 and 2011. The articles have to be indexed by Web of Science, a database provided by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, Thompson Scientific, Philadelphia, USA). Conference abstracts and editorials are not included. So the articles are research paper, review paper, feature, brief communication, case report, technical note and chronology.

As we can see from the figure, there are no Indonesian. So Bandung BCI group have never published their research in journals, indexed by ISI. As far as I know, the Bandung BCI group also had a collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine of Universitas Indonesia in Salemba, Jakarta, Indonesia. From some conference papers I have read, Institut Teknologi Telkom (IT Telkom) in Bandung are also doing research on EEG signals processing. But universities and also research institutes in Indonesia have not published scientific articles about EEG-based BCI in reputable journals between 2007 and 2011.

I get a feeling that Indonesian researchers and scientists publish their works more in conferences than journals. #fb
— iscab.saptocondro (@saptocondro) December 5, 2013

Well, I am Indonesian, currently doing research on EEG-based BCI. I just began my PhD program this September 2013 at Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg in Germany. So I have not yet published any journal papers. I hope, as an Indonesian, I play important role in international research on Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). In the next literature review, I hope there will be at least one Indonesian and that shall be me.

OK, now I should stop blogging and doing real research. :-)


Bremen, 6 Desember 2013

iscab.saptocondro
Darah Juang!