SCST

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NOTE: 

Establishment of the Supreme Council of Science and Technology (SCST) regarding Decree Law No. 77 is repealed pursuant to Article 106 of the Decree Law No: 703 dated 2/7/2018. The relevant article is as follows:

"ARTICLE 106 - The Decree Law on the Establishment of the High Council on Science and Technology dated 16/8/1983 has been repealed."

The content related to SCST on our website will be published for archiving matters.

On the other hand, according to the new regulation, the, Presidential Decree numbered 1 and dated 10/7/2018 and numbered 4 "Council of Science, Technology and Innovation Policies" (CoSTIP) has been established and President of TÜBİTAK Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal has been appointed as a member of the CoSTIP.

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The Supreme Council for Science and Technology (SCST) is the highest ranking STI policy-making body in Turkey chaired by the Prime Minister with the decision-making power for national S&T and innovation policy.

SCST was established and granted the role of identifying, monitoring and coordinating policies in S&T areas in accordance with national goals for economic and social development and national security. Accountable directly to the Prime Minister, SCST upholds important functions, such as to assist the government in determining long-term S&T policies (Box 1). Established in 1983, SCST realized its first operational meeting in 1989, thus opening a new era for the STI policy system, and started to convene with increasing intensity towards and after the turn of the new millennium. Since the mid-nineties, SCST had also been engaged in a shift towards innovation oriented S&T policies. Starting with the 10th meeting in 2005, this momentum was transitioned into the dynamic of meeting two times annually. The 21st meeting was realized in June 2010.

Box 1: Functions of SCST

According to statutory decree 77, The Supreme Council for Science and Technology (SCST) was established to fulfill the functions determined as: 
 
a) To assist the government in the determination of long-term S&T policies,
b) To identify R&D targets related to S&T areas,
c) To identify the priority areas in R&D and prepare related plans and programs,
d) In accordance with these plans and programs, to assign tasks to public organs as well as to cooperate with the business enterprise sector as necessary to identify regulations and promotion schemes related to business enterprise sector,
e) To have bills and legislations prepared aiming to develop and increase the effectiveness of the S&T system,
f) To identify the means for development and effective utilization of R&D human resources, and assure their implementation,
g) To set the procedures for establishment of R&D centers of private institutions, and monitoring and evaluating their activities,
h) To determine in which research fields and in what proportions the R&D investment is to be made,
i) To provide coordination among sectors and institutions in programming and implementation stages.

SCST is chaired by the Prime Minister and composed of its permanent council members of Ministers of State, National Defense, Finance, National Education, Health, Forestry and Rural Affairs, Industry and Trade, Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Forest, Chairman of Council of Higher Education, Undersecretary of State Planning Organization, Undersecretaries of Treasury and Foreign Trade, Chairman of Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, President of TÜBİTAK and a Vice President, General Director of Turkish Radio and Television, Chairman of Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey, and a member to be appointed by a university to be designated by the Council of Higher Education with other relevant stakeholders that are invited to the meetings with advisory capacity. In total, over one hundred different actors from the governmental bodies, higher education and business enterprise sectors are represented in SCST meetings. Hence, SCST is the culmination of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders from across Turkey in the STI fields. The inclusion of such a broad base of stakeholders in SCST not only serves as an effective medium for systematic consultation and dialogue, but also sustains robust interactions among the stakeholders, which enables a more participatory policy-making process. Moreover, SCST contributes to diffusing the developments on recent STI policies while increasing commitments for policy implementation. The biannual meetings of SCST since 2005 have further served to advance a culture within the participating institutions themselves, which holds promise to further the level of S&T governance to sustain the STI impetus in which Turkey is currently engaged.

In all of these ways and others, SCST is at the apex of the S&T governance structure in Turkey in which policy instruments are selected, (regulatory, meta-instruments or soft instruments), long-term goals are established by decree, and tasks for the implementation of the adopted decrees are assigned to the respective stakeholders, accordingly. Thus, by its very structure that includes a broad base of stakeholders, SCST contributes to establish the link between policy on the one hand and its implementation on the other. As the secretariat of SCST, TÜBİTAK is responsible for disseminating and following-up on the decrees’ implementation. Furthermore, while one of the State Ministers has always upheld permanent membership in SCST and been responsible for the field of S&T, in the current Cabinet of Ministers, the role was formally redefined as the coordination of R&D activities and institutions, holding promise to further support the STI impetus.

Click here for the SCST Meeting Documents (In Turkish).