Academic promotion for lecturers is no longer merely a matter of accumulating credit points or completing administrative paperwork. The lecturer career development system is shifting toward an evaluation approach that places greater emphasis on quality, academic integrity, scholarly productivity, and impact as essential parts of an academic's career journey.

This shift was among the key topics discussed in the Socialization of Lecturer Academic Position Promotion held by UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta on Friday (9/4/2026), at the Meeting Room of the Prof. K.H. Saifuddin Zuhri Building. The event featured the Director of Human Resources at the Directorate General of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Prof. Dr. Ir. Sri Suning Kusumawardani, S.T., M.T.

In her presentation, Prof. Suning outlined the regulations and implementation of lecturer professional and career development, including Ministerial Decree (Kepmendiktisaintek) No. 39/M/KEP/2026. From her presentation, the direction of lecturer career development can be summarized through four key words: adaptation, professionalism, productivity, and impact.

UIN Sunan Kalijaga's Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Prof. Istiningsih, said these regulatory changes make socialization and mentoring for lecturers increasingly important.

She noted that the forum was not merely a venue for disseminating regulations. UIN Sunan Kalijaga also intends for it to serve as a space for consultation and mentoring on the personnel-related challenges lecturers face, particularly those concerning rank and academic position development.

In this way, lecturers do not have to face the complexity of the regulations alone. Issues that arise can be discussed, consulted on, and resolved together, so that academic career paths can be planned more effectively.

Adaptation: Lecturer Careers Follow Regulatory Change

The first direction is adaptation. The lecturer career service system needs to adjust to regulatory developments, including the mandate of Ministerial Regulation (Permendiktisaintek) No. 52 of 2025 on the Profession, Career, and Income of Lecturers.

These changes require universities and lecturers alike to re-familiarize themselves with career development mechanisms, from performance management to the requirements for academic position promotion.

Under the latest system, promotion through the Lecturer Academic Position (JAD) ranks still follows the sequence of Assistant Professor (Asisten Ahli), Lecturer (Lektor), Associate Professor (Lektor Kepala), up to Professor. However, the process is now more closely tied to performance track records and the fulfillment of various academic indicators.

This is reflected, for instance, in the calculation of research proportion requirements. Promotion from Assistant Professor to Lecturer requires a minimum research proportion of 35 percent, from Lecturer to Associate Professor 40 percent, and from Associate Professor to Professor 45 percent. The research output used for these calculations must also be work that has not previously been used for an earlier academic promotion.

This means lecturers need to plan their career trajectories earlier than before. Publications, research, teaching, and other academic activities are no longer standalone achievements, but part of an evolving professional track record.

Professionalism: Integrity as Part of an Academic Career

The second direction is professionalism. The socialization materials affirmed that competency testing serves as an instrument to ensure both the quality and academic integrity of lecturers.

The requirements for promotion also reflect strong attention to integrity. Application documents include, among others, senate approval regarding expertise considerations, approval from the academic integrity committee, an integrity pact on the authenticity of scholarly work, BKD (Lecturer Workload) reports through the SISTER system, fulfillment of lecturer performance indicators, and similarity-check (plagiarism) documentation for scholarly work.

The quality of a scholarly work is also inseparable from how it is published.

National data on academic position promotion evaluation shows that substantive assessment covers the novelty of the work, the credibility of the journal, the alignment of the journal's scope or subject matter, academic track record, freedom from academic integrity violations, and evaluation of the integrity of the publication process.

For Professor-level applications, these variables are further supplemented by an assessment of managerial capacity.

With this framework, an academic position ultimately becomes more than just a title attached to a lecturer's name. It represents a quality and academic track record that must be able to be held accountable.

Productivity: Scholarly Work Encouraged to Be More Impactful

The third direction is productivity.

Under the latest regulation, there is a concept known as Achievement Credit Points (AK Prestasi), earned through the assessment of research performance. Meanwhile, Conversion Credit Points (AK Konversi) are derived from converting performance ratings for teaching, community service, and supporting activities.

This approach reflects an effort to encourage lecturers to produce scholarly work more productively.

However, the productivity referred to here is not simply about increasing the number of publications.

The socialization materials instead positioned AK Prestasi as a stimulus for lecturers to produce impactful scholarly work. Career orientation is thus shifting from merely pursuing quantity toward quality, relevance, and the contribution of the work itself.

This need becomes even clearer when looking at national data on academic position promotion.

In the 2026 Wave I regular period, there were 4,277 proposals for academic position promotion submitted. Of these, 3,794 were proposals for promotion to Associate Professor (Lektor Kepala) and 483 were proposals for promotion to Professor.

Of the Associate Professor proposals, 1,077, or 28 percent, were recommended, while 2,717, or 72 percent, were not yet recommended. For Professor, only 77 proposals, or 16 percent, were recommended, while 406, or 84 percent, had not yet received a recommendation.

These figures also show that academic career development requires planning and mentoring that cannot be done only in the lead-up to submission.

This is precisely why it matters that UIN Sunan Kalijaga has turned this socialization event into a space for consultation and mentoring. Lecturers can come to understand not only “what the requirements are”, but also “what needs to be prepared” well in advance.

Impact: Academic Position Is Not the End Goal

The fourth direction, and the point toward which the entire system converges, is impact.

Lecturer career development, in the end, does not stop once someone attains the rank of Associate Professor or Professor. Strengthening lecturers' academic capacity is expected to contribute to building an excellent, world-class higher education ecosystem in Indonesia.

This perspective matters because academic promotion can easily become viewed as a purely individual matter: a lecturer accumulates credit points, fulfills the requirements, and then obtains a higher rank.

In reality, however, its substance is far greater.

The higher a lecturer's academic capacity, the greater their responsibility becomes in generating new knowledge, improving the quality of teaching, mentoring the next generation of academics, strengthening research, and producing knowledge that benefits society.

For UIN Sunan Kalijaga, this challenge is especially relevant given the composition of its academic human resources. Based on SISTER data as of September 3, 2026, presented during the socialization session, UIN Sunan Kalijaga has 751 active lecturers, 724 permanent lecturers, 98 professors, and 606 lecturers who hold lecturer certification.

For this reason, strengthening lecturer careers is not merely a matter of personnel administration. It is part of the institution's investment in strengthening the quality of education, research, and scholarly contribution.

Through ongoing socialization, consultation, and mentoring, UIN Sunan Kalijaga is working to ensure that its lecturers are able to adapt to regulatory changes, uphold professionalism and academic integrity, increase scholarly productivity, and produce work that generates real impact.

It is at this point that academic promotion finds its true meaning: not simply moving up to a higher career rank, but expanding an academic's contribution to knowledge, to the university, and to society. (humassk)