The co-operation with the Universitas Indonesia (UI) goes back to the year 1997. In the course of the first education exhibition where the DAAD introduced the newly established internationally oriented courses, personal contacts between Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Hunger and lecturers from the faculty of engineering at the UI was established. A few years later, in 2003, the Mercator office at the UI could be ceremoniously opened and run.

The UI-Mercator office îs like a facility of the faculty of engineering of the University of Duisburg-Essen and is located on the UI campus within spitting distance of the faculty of engineering. It ensures the long-lasting presence of the UDE not only at the UI, but also in the entire republic of Indonesia and the bordering countries.

The bureau is equipped with a secretariat and a multimedia laboratory equipped with the most modern computer technology. The construction of the Mercator bureau and the multimedia laboratory was made possible via the funding from Stiftung Mercator GmbH, Essen, which supports the BRIDGE project (Deutsch-Asiatische Hochschulallianz in den Ingenieurwissenschaften Teilprojekt Präsenz in Asien). With furtherance from the BRIDGE project emerged in addition a second Mercator bureau at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

The original goal of the BRIDGE project was the institutionalisation of collaboration between the partner universities. The support and further development of commonly borne courses in engineering with double-degrees evolved into a special point of emphasis. In the course of this, a Masters course in computer engineering was established. This program has a high reputation in Indonesia and is meanwhile being supported for students of the UI with state scholarships of the Indonesian government.

Even in the domain of research, both partners cooperate with each other in several ways. On the one hand, a brisk exchange of scientists emerged; on the other hand, common projects could be carried out e.g. with furtherance from the European Union within the scope of the ASIA-Link program. The Mercator bureau also played an important role at the UI during the fund-raising of several national research projects of the Indonesian government.

In January 2007, the Mercator bureau moved to the newly erected Engineering Center at the UI. The UI Mercator bureau connects therewith the biggest Indonesian technology centre (Engineering Center) with German economy and science.

To the Mercator bureau in Indonesia