This year The Ministry of Development announced the 10th Development Plan of Turkey (2014-2018). The plan covers analysis of the current development process, level of progress and policy strategies for the following five years.

The plan indicates that the government policies are focusing on Research & Development (R&D) and Innovation and Technology investment through various channels. The plan shows the growing political commitment to science, technology and innovation in Turkey as well.

Developing business and investment environment:

• Raising the amount of foreign direct investment by 19.3% and up to 93.9 billion dollar.

Improving international collaboration networks for sustainable development:

• Increasing the number of international education programmes, mobility and research activities
• Research on the capacity of international collaboration opportunities

Commercialisation of Turkey’s prioritised technology sectors:

• Raising the number of R&D projects, new products, brands and patents through incentives
• Training programmes for development of qualified researchers
• Development of innovative entrepreneurship
• Raising the number of PhD students and entrepreneurs in Turkey
• Support and subsidies for the incubations centres, techno parks and technology development zones
• Developing technology transfer programmes for SMEs

In this line, The Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology selected 20 Universities in 2013 - 2014 from Turkey who will receive 1 Million TL Technology Transfer Support from the government for developing R&D and Innovation Projects. Through this 10 years funding programme, the science and technology investment, production and employability projects will be implemented within those universities to meet the development targets.

The private and public investment and performance on R&D is rising annually as well. In 2012, the R&D Expenditures is raised by 17,1%  compared to 2011 with 0,92% of GDP

In the last decade, Turkey has devoted increasing importance to investment in science, technology and innovation as shown by the continuous increase in government funding for R&D and innovation activities. Accordingly, performance of research, innovation is increasing progressively.  This potential creates unique opportunities for the UK sector to work with Turkish HEIs and related sectors on R&D.

To support this, in 2012 British Council launched a funding opportunity for Turkish and British researchers to build capacity for industry collaboration with higher education and research in Turkey through collaborative partnerships and shared learning with the UK.

Value to both countries, 22 joint projects from Turkey and UK out of 41 applications were successfully awarded with grant, for the sectors of Agriculture, Energy, Food Security, Environment and Sustainable Development, Financial Services, Health, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Killer facts:

• 23 Turkish Universities, 20 UK Universities, 19 Industry partners and 12 Governmental/NGO Partners involve in the projects
• 18 Teams have industry partners in the UK and Turkey
• 8 Project team have developed joint curriculum
• Applications for national and international funds in excess of € 22 million  
• Received grant amount from organizations €1.9 million

For information please contact Hande Diker at hande.diker@britishcouncil.org.tr