The member countries came together at the Gebze Campus of TÜBİTAK at the first board meeting of EUREKA, of which Türkiye is the term chairship for 2023-24.
Under the chairship of TÜBİTAK Vice President and EUREKA Term Chair İsmail Doğan, representatives from Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and EUREKA Secretariat attended the onsite meeting at TUBITAK MAM, while respresentatives from Switzerland and the Eureopan Commission attended the meeting virtually. During the meeting, our country was also represented by Türkiye's senior representative Assoc. Dr. Duygu Çelik, National Project Coordinators Umut Ege and Ayda Kara.
The President of TUBITAK, Prof Dr Hasan Mandal, made the opening speech and made a presentation on “Collaboration Based on Co-Development for Stronger R&D and Innovation Ecosystems”. Sharing the short and long-term outlook of global risks, Mandal stated, “Global risks, which are among the heaviest risks both in the short and long term, include inadequacies that cannot be reduced and adapted to climate change, and natural disasters.”
Mandal, talked about the associated environmental, social, technological, geopolitical and economic risks and said; “Environmental, social, technological, geopolitical and economic risks are interconnected in complex systems, and solution orientation requires large-scale multidisciplinary collaboration. Pandemic, climate change, shortage of raw materials, disruption of value chains, geopolitical, economic etc. Global crises are forcing countries to be sustainable, resilient and inclusive.”
Emphasizing the increasing importance given to research and development, Mandal said, “The increase in R&D expenditures continues with a focus on the private sector. R&D expenditures with significant contributions from the private sector Its ratio to gross domestic product increased from 1.37 percent in 2020 to 1.40 percent in 2021.”
Mandal noted that TÜBİTAK will celebrate its 60th anniversary on the 24th of July and heintroduced the centers and institutes affiliated to TÜBİTAK. In addition to mentioning the support provided by TÜBİTAK to all actors in TARAL, Mandal especially emphasized the support for entrepreneurs and SMEs. Pointing to the importance of impact-oriented co-creation models for the ecosystem, the TÜBİTAK President noted that they have created high-tech platforms to activate R&D and innovation accumulation within the scope of co-development models, and shared the details of the platforms.
Pointing out that TÜBİTAK's visibility in the international arena has increased recently, Mandal noted that they are in bilateral cooperation with 67 countries and 98 institutions. While mentioning that TUBITAK has created and continues to create such activities and initiatives like multilateral associations on joint research and innovation projects, scientific activities, and exchange of researchers, the TUBITAK president added that, “In 2022, 28 different bilateral calls were opened with 19 countries within the scope of our TÜBİTAK 1071 support program.”
Mandal also emphasized Türkiye's achievements in the Horizon Europe Programme by saying that, "As of June 2023, 471 institutions from our ecosystem have joined forces to support many pillars of the Horizon Europe programme implementation through a total of 286 different projects. It is also important for us that 29 of these projects are coordinated by Turkish companies. The countries with which we cooperate the most in the Horizon Europe program are also EUREKA member countries.”
Noting that Türkiye has been actively participating in EUREKA since 1985, Mandal expressed his pride and happiness in Türkiye undertaking the chairship of EUREKA for the 3rd time as. Mandal said, “With 1598 participants (SMEs, large enterprises, universities and research institutes), Türkiye is the 9th country in terms of participants in projects and is the 1st in EUREKA Clusters. A total of 787 project proposals have been developed.”
The President of TÜBİTAK also noted that under the Chairship of EUREKA, simplifying the governance of EUREKA, ensuring its sustainability, and determining the actions that will provide more added value to the countries that will become members of EUREKA in the future are priorities.
Prof. Dr. Mandal, used the phrases: “With the experience gained from Eurostars-1 and Eurostars-2, we included our universities and research institutions in Eurostars-3. They will now be able to take part in projects as partners within the scope of the Innovation Support Programme with the code of TEYDEB 1709. For this reason, our success rate has increased in Eurostars-3. SMEs also continue to increase their success by taking part in international R&D projects with our ecosystem in Eurostars-3 and Innowide Programmes.”
Reminding the Presidency of the World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organizations (WAITRO), Mandal said, “In our new WAITRO Presidency, our vision includes focusing on opportunities for sustainable development while effectively addressing climate change and complex global challenges.”.
“The Global Research Council (GRC) has recently adopted principles and practices in climate change research funding with an emphasis on sharing best practices, coordinated research, being interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.” Mandal reminded that “TÜBİTAK is a Member of the Board of Directors, which is the highest decision-making body of the International Union of Scientific Organizations (ANSO), which has 67 members from 50 countries.”
Mandal said, “We aim to overcome global challenges under EUREKA Türkiye Chairship.”
Mandal also talked about TÜBİTAK's long-standing partnership with COST, stating that “Türkiye continues to improve its performance and took part in 99 percent of the COST Actions carried out in 2022 based on researcher integration in a total of 268 of the 279 actions carried out.”
President of TÜBİTAKstated that, “Together development-based cooperation is the key to achieving our 2053 goals and a sustainable common future”.
TÜBİTAK Vice President and EUREKA Chair İsmail Doğan said that they are preparing and planning to produce results that will create significant contribution and added value to their stakeholders in the EUREKA network.
Underlining that they have created an ambitious business plan in line with Türkiye’s interests, Doğan said, "The fact that our country will hold the chairship of EUREKA, one of the largest networks in R&D, innovation and cooperation in the world, is both a very important, proud and exciting development. ”
Noting that they have created an ambitious business plan for one year, Doğan said, "We are making the necessary preparations and plans for the business plan to produce results that will create significant contribution and added value to our stakeholders in the EUREKA network in line with the interests of our country and the opportunities to come."
Doğan stated that they will carry out their work focusing on making their priorities reciprocated in international platforms and world power international organizations and creating added value there, for a duration of one year.
Stating that they aim to create added value by working in close cooperation with other EUREKA members and companies, universities and research centers in Türkiye, Doğan said that, “We also call on our companies that want to access important locations and markets to be more active in the EUREKA network. We aim to create added value for our country and our stakeholders by working in close cooperation with our EUREKA team and other stakeholders, as well as with the private sector, our universities, and our research centers."
13.07.2023