"The role of the G20 in empowering women, especially in G20 countries, is not just how to open access and guarantee equal rights for women," Handoko said when contacted by ANTARA in Jakarta on Friday.
The role of the G20 is to encourage the creation of a more friendly environment for women to allow them to pursue careers and contribute to development in a professional manner, he added.
Women have a very important role in today's modern era, he said. Women are not only expected to have a career in traditional professions but have penetrated into various other sectors and professions.
"This is not only because of equal rights and access without gender discrimination, but also because of the real need with the increasing diversification of various professions in society," he added.
According to Handoko, many new professions have emerged that are more suitable for women.
Even business actors in the micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) sector are currently increasingly dominated by women from various circles.
"These women entrepreneurs actually bring up a variety of new superior products that have not been thought of before," he said.
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Therefore, the G20 is paying attention to women's empowerment in order to increase the role and contribution of women in bringing progress and change in nation-building.
The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) is enabling innovative product testing to expedite the downstreaming and commercialization of research and innovation results, Handoko noted earlier.
"This innovation product testing facilitation scheme is BRIN's step to expedite research result downstreaming that can be an innovation that is not only scientifically proven but also capable of meeting the regulation," he explained.
Due to the absence of facilities for product testing that necessitate large funding and resource investment, a lot of research halts at the publication stage, he stated.
In addition, not all industries are willing to adopt research results that are deemed to have a high risk of failure and require a large investment.
To this end, with budget, infrastructure, and researcher resources, BRIN is helping researchers to test research result products, in accordance with the applicable standards.
BRIN can also assist the industry in testing innovative products so that business products can be obtained without requiring large investment funding for testing, Handoko informed.
He said he expects that BRIN's assistance would help close the risk gap in the downstreaming of research result products of economic value, so that increasingly more scientific research result products can be commercialized.
According to acting deputy for research and facilitation at BRIN, Agus Haryono, the agency is implementing a health innovation product testing scheme.
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Translator: Martha H, Azis Kurmala
Editor: Suharto
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