🎯 ERIA Interview Prep

Three things distinguish me. First, I bring both sides of the research-to-policy bridge — I can produce rigorous analysis and I know how to make it land in a government context because I have been on the receiving end of policy research for over a decade. Second, I have a genuine regional research record on the specific countries this role focuses on — my fossil fuel subsidy paper is not Indonesia-only, it is a four-country analysis that treats Thailand and Vietnam as primary cases. Third, I am analytically honest — I do not smooth over complexity to make a finding look cleaner than it is, which I think is what builds lasting credibility with senior policymakers.

My core quantitative toolkit is STATA and R for econometric analysis — fixed-effects regression, panel data methods, ordered probit modelling. I also work in Python for data processing and automation. For policy simulations like the fiscal reallocation scenarios in my subsidy paper, I build Excel-based models but increasingly move computation into Python for reproducibility and scale.

Beyond the tools, I have experience handling multi-source international datasets — IEA, World Bank, OECD, ADB — including the alignment, normalisation, and comparability challenges that come with cross-country data. I also hold Google Data Analytics certification, which reinforced data storytelling and visualisation skills using Tableau and R. I am not a software engineer, but I am a capable applied analyst who can work with large, messy data independently and produce outputs that non-technical readers can use.

I treat it as an analytical finding in itself rather than a problem to resolve by picking a winner. Different sources use different methodologies, base years, and reporting conventions — for example, the OECD DAC climate finance figures and the MDB joint climate finance reports use substantially different attribution methods, which produces real numerical differences. In my climate funding analysis for Indonesia, I made those differences explicit and explained the methodological reasons behind them, rather than just presenting one figure. For the fossil fuel subsidy research, I used IEA and World Bank figures in parallel and triangulated findings — where they agreed, the finding was stronger; where they diverged, I noted the range.

The key discipline is transparency: document which source was used for which calculation, explain why, and flag uncertainty ranges where they are material. Policy audiences can handle uncertainty if it is explained clearly; they cannot trust analysis where it has been hidden.

ERIA was established in 2008 as an intergovernmental organisation under the East Asia Summit framework, covering ASEAN's ten member states plus the EAS dialogue partners. It sits at the ASEAN Secretariat and functions as the research and policy advisory arm for economic integration across the region. Institutionally, it operates under the Governing Board and reports into the EAS process — which gives it access to the highest level of regional decision-making, but also means its research agenda is shaped by the political priorities of the summit process.

The policy fellow sits at the critical junction of ERIA's analytical output and the national ministries that need to use it — essentially the bridge role that determines whether ERIA's research actually changes anything. I understand that function well from having been on the receiving end of it in the Ministry of Finance for over a decade.

Indonesia is the largest economy in ASEAN and in many ways a microcosm of the development challenges the region faces — commodity dependence, energy transition pressure, fiscal management under democratic constraints, and a large informal sector. Understanding how policy works in Indonesia is not a niche credential — it is understanding the dynamics that most ASEAN member states navigate in different configurations.

Beyond that, my experience is not purely domestic. My research explicitly modelled four ASEAN economies. My GRIPS education was regionally oriented. My secondment involved multilateral engagement with partners working across the region. And my MoF work on procurement system reform and asset management touched on ASEAN interoperability directly. The domestic label understates what I have actually been doing.

GRIPS was my most recent academic credential, but my professional experience runs 12 years — I am not a fresh graduate. I entered government service in 2013, directly out of STAN, and have held progressively more complex roles across procurement operations, strategic communications, knowledge management, and policy analysis. The GRIPS degree came in the middle of that career — it deepened my analytical toolkit and gave me the international policy frameworks to work at a regional level, but it sits on top of a decade of real government experience, not instead of it.

I would actually argue the combination — established government track record plus recent rigorous academic training — is relatively uncommon and directly relevant to what this role requires.

This is actually one of the most important structural points about ERIA — it is an intergovernmental organisation, not an arm of any one member state. If I join ERIA, my mandate is to ERIA's mission and the quality of its research, not to defend Indonesian government positions. I would not expect that to be a comfortable situation if it arose, but I would not treat it as an ethical conflict either — it is an inherent part of working for a regional body.

In practice, the right response to a conflict like that is rigorous transparency: make the analytical basis of the finding clear, present the evidence, and let the quality of the research speak. Governments are entitled to their positions; what ERIA provides is independent, high-quality analysis — and that independence is precisely what makes it valuable to all member states, including Indonesia.

Honestly, it is the normal condition of policy work — not the exception. Most recommendations do not get adopted immediately, and treating that as failure would make the job unsustainable. What matters is the longer cycle: a well-structured recommendation that is not acted on today often resurfaces when the political context shifts, or when a crisis creates urgency. The value of rigorous, evidence-based analysis is that it is available when the moment arrives, not just when it is first produced.

In my Ministry experience, I learned to think of it as planting seeds. The climate funding analysis I produced fed into the Ministry's engagement strategy — I may not have seen every recommendation acted on directly, but the framing and evidence base I created became part of the institutional knowledge that shapes future decisions. That is a realistic and, I think, healthy way to work in policy.

I do not speak Thai or Vietnamese — I will be straightforward about that. My working languages are Indonesian, English, and conversational Japanese. I am aware the JD lists Thai or Vietnamese proficiency as a strong asset, and it genuinely is — I do not want to downplay that gap.

What I can offer in the interim is that most formal government engagement in ASEAN at the ministry and directorate level operates in English, and I am fully professional in English. I would also invest in building basic conversational proficiency in Thai or Vietnamese in the near term — it signals respect and commitment, even if the substantive work happens in English.

Not in peer-reviewed journals — my publication record is in policy-oriented formats: a working paper submitted to the ADBI Call for Papers, a research report produced for and used by the Ministry of Finance, my GRIPS master's thesis, and an earlier undergraduate thesis on public spending efficiency.

My work is designed to reach decision-makers and practitioners, not to contribute to academic literature. I think that is actually a better fit for ERIA's mission — rigorous analysis that can be used, not research that sits in a journal. That said, I am aware that publication credibility matters in a research institution, and building a more formal publication record is something I would prioritise at ERIA.

Not at the regional level in the formal sense of an ASEAN consultation framework. However, I have designed and managed consultation and engagement processes at scale in the domestic government context. In my knowledge and learning management role, I designed the entire consultation and capacity-building architecture for the Ministry's state asset management training programme — identifying stakeholders, structuring the engagement sequence, building feedback loops, and measuring quality outcomes. I ran national-scale webinars and workshops that consistently exceeded 1,000 participants.

The scale and formality are different from an ASEAN consultation framework, but the core design questions are the same: who are the stakeholders, what are their information needs, how do you structure their input so it actually influences the outcome, and how do you close the feedback loop so they stay engaged. I am confident those skills transfer to the regional context, especially with ERIA's existing institutional frameworks as a scaffold.

I will be precise about what I can and cannot claim. I have not influenced an ASEAN-level decision in the sense of a policy outcome attributable to my work. What I have done is contribute to the analytical inputs that shape Indonesia's positions in ASEAN and multilateral fora — the climate funding analysis I produced fed into the Ministry's multilateral engagement strategy, and that strategy shapes how Indonesia engages in ASEAN climate finance discussions.

I think the more relevant claim is this: I understand the pathway between research and ASEAN-level decisions because I have worked at the national government end of that pathway for over a decade. I know what it takes for an analytical finding to cross the threshold from "interesting research" to "something a minister will carry into a meeting." That is exactly what this role is about, and it is where I bring genuine value.

I work well under pressure when the pressure is real rather than manufactured. My approach is to front-load the work: understand the deadline, immediately identify the minimum viable output that would satisfy the core requirement, and make sure that is done first — then use remaining time to add depth and quality. That way, if the timeline compresses further, I am not catastrophically behind.

A concrete example: my fossil fuel subsidy working paper was submitted to the ADBI Call for Papers while I was simultaneously readjusting to my return to the Ministry as a regular employee. I structured it as a discrete analytical sprint — three weeks of focused work on model, findings, and write-up — and met the submission date. The climate funding analysis for the Ministry was similarly deadline-driven, with an output needed to brief leadership before a multilateral engagement schedule. Both were delivered on time.

What does not work for me under pressure is multitasking fragmentation — I prefer fewer parallel streams with clear milestones rather than many simultaneous tasks without priority.

My ADBI working paper submission is an honest answer here. The paper was submitted and ultimately not selected. Looking back, I think the main limitation was that I focused heavily on the fiscal modelling and did not adequately foreground the political economy constraints — why subsidy reform is hard is arguably more analytically interesting to a development bank audience than the proof that it is fiscally viable, which most economists already accept. I was too close to my own methodology to see that framing gap clearly at the time.

What I took from it: for the next research output, I now do a "reader's first question" exercise before I structure the paper — asking what the target audience most needs to understand first, rather than building up from data to conclusions. I also find it useful to get a critical read from someone outside the technical domain before finalising structure.

GRIPS was the most intensive multicultural environment I have worked in. My cohort included professionals from Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, and across sub-Saharan Africa — all working through complex policy questions in English, from very different governance traditions. What I learned there is that the biggest barrier is not language but institutional assumptions: someone from a unitary state sees policy implementation completely differently from someone from a federal or highly decentralised system.

Learning to make those differences explicit in research conversations — rather than assuming shared context — made me a much better analytical collaborator. I also served as GRIPS's Public Relations Ambassador, which involved communicating research to external and international audiences — a different kind of multicultural challenge around how to frame academic work for government and media contexts. The multilateral workshop I co-facilitated with UNDP was similarly multicultural — government officials, UN staff, and private sector participants from multiple countries, all with different communication registers.

In my knowledge management role, I was responsible for guiding Ministry units through a formal conversion process for government procurement functional positions. Some units were resistant — the functional position structure meant additional assessment requirements and changed their reporting lines. The resistance was not irrational; they were protecting their teams from what looked like extra administrative burden with unclear benefit.

My approach was to stop treating it as an information problem and start treating it as an incentive problem. Instead of explaining the process more thoroughly, I focused on showing what the functional position unlocked for the individuals — career development pathways, allowance structures, technical recognition. That shift in framing moved conversations that had stalled for months. By the end of the programme, 68 staff had successfully converted — above target. The lesson I carried is that resistance almost always has a rational basis; finding that basis and addressing it directly is more effective than better communication of the original message.

Yes, fully. Fixed-term contracts are the norm for international organisation roles, and I think they create a healthy performance expectation on both sides — I am accountable to deliver, and ERIA is accountable to provide the environment for me to do so. The possibility of renewal up to five years gives sufficient planning horizon for the kind of relationship-building and analytical contribution this role requires. I am not coming in looking for a permanent civil service posting; I am coming in to do meaningful work and build from there.

Absolutely — I would expect and welcome it as a core part of the role. Effective government liaison cannot be done entirely remotely; the relationship-building that makes substantive dialogue possible requires in-person time. I am fully flexible on travel requirements and would prioritise building early face-time with key counterparts in both countries.

Ask 2 of these 4 — pick based on what has already been covered in the interview:

1. "How does ERIA typically structure the relationship between the Policy Fellow and the research team — is the Fellow primarily a government liaison, or also a co-author on research outputs?" (Shows you want to understand the role deeply, not just get it.)

2. "For the Thailand and Vietnam focus, are there existing government dialogue frameworks in place that the Fellow would step into, or would building those relationships be an early priority?" (Shows you are thinking about day one, not just the offer.)

3. "What does success look like in the first six months?" (Strong question — signals you are delivery-oriented. Almost always impresses.)

4. "What are the most active research and policy priorities ERIA is working on right now in the energy or climate space?" (Shows genuine interest in ERIA's current work. Only ask if they haven't already covered it.)