Tubagus Furqon Sofhani, Ph.D.

Tubagus Furqon Sofhani, Ph.D. is a senior expert in regional planning, rural development, and territorial development, with extensive experience in research, higher education, policy development, and community and institutional capacity building in Indonesia. He is one of the founding declarators of Perkumpulan INISIATIF, having contributed to the organization’s establishment on 19 June 2005 alongside its other founding members. His early involvement reflects his longstanding commitment to strengthening civil society, advancing participatory development, and promoting policy approaches that place communities and local institutions at the center of development processes. As a senior academic at Institut Teknologi Bandung, he has built a distinguished professional and intellectual record in regional and rural planning, with particular attention to the interconnections between spatial, social, economic, institutional, and environmental dimensions of development

Throughout his professional and academic career, Tubagus Furqon has advanced development approaches that recognize community capacity, local institutions, social networks, innovation, and territorial characteristics as critical foundations for inclusive and sustainable development. His work encompasses community and institutional capacity building, rural and coastal development, local economic development, rural entrepreneurship, community-based food security, innovation diffusion, and the improvement of basic infrastructure and public services. He has also contributed to research and policy initiatives concerning village-owned enterprises, regional development, spatial governance, climate change, and the increasingly important relationship between urban and rural transformation. His approach reflects a commitment to ensuring that development planning goes beyond physical infrastructure and spatial arrangements to strengthen the agency, resilience, and institutional capacity of communities as active drivers of sustainable territorial transformation

Tubagus Furqon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Institut Teknologi Bandung, a Master of Arts from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States. His combination of international academic training, extensive expertise in regional planning, development research, and community engagement positions him as an important contributor to Indonesia’s evolving discourse on territorial transformation, rural development, and community-centered development.

Areas of Expertise: Urban & Regional Planning, Regional & Rural Development, Community Development & Empowerment, Regional Development Policy, Local Institutional Development, Community Capacity Building, Social Innovation & Innovation Diffusion, Social Networks & Community Development, Rural Entrepreneurship, Climate Change & Regional Development, Food Security & Local Economic Development, Spatial Planning & Territorial Governance, Rural Infrastructure & Public Services, Coastal & Border Area Development

Email : furqons@gmail.com