Winter 2025-2026 Indonesia course applications (PLCY689I)

 


The Winter Session 2026 Indonesia study abroad field course is currently accepting applications. PLCY 689I: Complex Social-Ecological Systems, Environmental Policy, and Sustainable Development in Indonesia (3 credits) runs for three weeks in-country from December 31, 2025 - January 24, 2026, tentatively traveling to Bali, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sumatra, and Java. 

The deadline for applications is September 30th, 2025. Applications for the course can be made at UMD’s Education Abroad webpage (MyEA): http://ter.ps/wtindonesia. Course directors review the applications.

Graduate students and undergraduate seniors and juniors with advanced standing may apply, as may non-UMD participants. Although centered on development and environmental/climate policy, this multidisciplinary program is open to all specializations and departments. Completing applications earlier rather than later benefits applicants as admissions are rolling and typically competitive (i.e. we have more applicants than we can accept).

Course faculty
Tom Hilde, Professor and Director: thilde@umd.edu
Matt Regan, Associate Director: mrgregan@gmail.com
Kasey Vangelov, Assistant Director: kvangelo@umd.edu

Course fee
The course fee covers in-country transportation (flights, buses, bicycles, boats), lodging, group meals, group events and activities, travel insurance, and UMD administrative fees. Students are primarily responsible for this course fee, international airfare, and personal expenses during the trip. Students do not pay UMD tuition in addition to the course fee. Tuition remission applies for GAs. 

Scholarships
We can award four $1000 Indonesia Program Scholarships. If you wish to apply for a scholarship, please make sure to fill in the scholarships section of the general application form at the Education Abroad website.

If you’d like to learn more about the course, here is the course blog with posts from previous years dating back to the creation of the course in 2011: 

We will also hold an information session about the course during the first or second week of the Fall semester at Thurgood Marshall Hall, date and time TBD.

Summary of the course
Indonesian place names like Bali, Java, the Spice Islands (Maluku), Borneo, and Sumatra resonate with exoticism for many people. This historical image has its roots, perhaps, in the country’s relative remoteness and complexity. The archipelago’s 17,000 islands comprise one of the most diverse countries on the planet – biologically/ecologically, culturally, and linguistically. Indonesia is home to hundreds of distinct indigenous groups and local languages, one of the three great remaining tropical rainforests, and the most biodiverse marine reef system in the world.

Indonesia is a young country, having declared independence from the Netherlands in 1945. Nonetheless, it is today the world’s largest majority Muslim nation, third largest democracy, fourth largest country by population, and one of the biggest emerging economies. The country continues to grapple with how to hold its bursting diversity and dynamism together in a single, modernizing nation in a way that also firmly confronts the issues of economic development and deep inequality, multicultural autonomy and democratic governance, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and conservation of some of the richest natural systems in the world. As such, the country’s reality is emblematic less of its historically exoticized uniqueness than of the complex, multifaceted problems the world faces in the 21st century. 

This graduate-level international development and environmental/climate policy field course takes a complex systems approach to the interconnections between Indonesia’s environmental challenges and development strategies with a focus on the interface between local governance systems and national policies, especially in the face of climate change. Understanding that most such challenges involve multiple stakeholders at different scales and in different sectors, we study how ground-level problems are mitigated or exacerbated by national and global government policies and where local efforts may better inform policy, paying special attention to indigenous systems and what they can teach us about sustainable development, livelihood security, and climate policy.
 
Visiting several of the main island groups of Indonesia – Bali, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sumatra, and Java – the course focuses on:

  • Indigenous systems of environmental management and understanding such as the complex adaptive subak system of rice terraces, irrigation, and water temples in Bali. 
  • Forest conservation and its place in climate change mitigation and adaptation, including deforestation and the expansion of oil palm plantations, carbon emissions from forest and peatland burning, wildlife habitat conservation, and indigenous and local forest management. 
  • Coral reefs and marine protected areas in the famed Coral Triangle, which comprises some of the healthiest remaining reefs on the planet. 
  • Local governance and adaptation measures, the country’s decentralization policy, and democratic development and human rights. 
  • The exploitation of mineral resources for the renewable energy transition and its environmental and social impacts. 
  • Discussions with leading government officials, top research experts, local farmers and fishermen, and NGO and IGO leaders, with intensive meetings particularly in Jakarta and Bogor. 

We also have three pre-trip meetings during the fall and one post-trip meeting in the spring.

Throughout the course, we experience the rich and fascinating nature and culture of Indonesia – the country’s different religions and unique communal traditions, stunning music and theater, ancient temples, beautiful landscapes and biodiversity, and wonderful people.