TÜBİTAK

President of TÜBİTAK Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal delivered a speech on "Towards the Future with TÜBİTAK Towards 2023" within the scope of the 35th Engineering Deans Council Meeting held at Prof. Dr. Gökhan Budak Conference Hall, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, hosted by Bayburt University.

TÜBİTAK President Hasan Mandal said in a speech he made at Bayburt University, "First of all we need to do a current situation analysis in order to look into the future." Hasan Mandal stated that he started his mission two months ago and they have been doing intensive studies to transfer their previous experiences to TÜBİTAK, said: " We received quite a few opinions from both academia and the business world, as well as TÜBİTAK members who received science awards in the past. We also tried to look into the future with taking an opinion from all 19 companies which received super-incentive, research universities, research infrastructures. But of course, in order to be able to look ahead to the future, we need to do a current situation analysis.”

TÜBİTAK President Hasan Mandal said in the speech he made at Bayburt University, "First of all we need to do a current situation analysis in order to look into the future." In his speech, he pointed that Turkey's R&D share in gross domestic product is increased by 69 per cent with respect to the data of 2016, Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal expressed, "Country has a goal for 2023, ‘we are going to be one of the 10 biggest economies.’ There are a number of goals in that scope. Sometimes targets are difficult but still exciting, giving responsibility.”

The President of TÜBİTAK stated that there was an increase in the number of full-time equivalent researchers, and an increase in the scientific publishing. Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal pointed that publications are around 21 percent in the first quarter of the year in Turkey and he continued: "When we look at the world average, this rate is at 44 percent. The majority of our publications are in the last quarter with 32 percent. The qualitative increase, compare to quantitative increase in the number of publications, is unfortunately not at the desired level. TÜBİTAK will exclude the last quarter of the journals in the National Scientific Publications Incentive Program in 2019. This is not due to lack of resources, but because of misguidance. Therefore, more qualified publications will be supported by the same and even increasing sources."

Reminding that TÜBİTAK has only one support program for academia and industry in 2002, Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal noted that there are many different support programs now. He mentioned that they will launch support programmes that are need and output based, high technology oriented and aiming to create multi-collaborative platforms; programmes for PhD for industrial sector and an entrepreneurship program in the near future. In addition, he reported that project evaluation and monitoring processes in TÜBİTAK will be shifted from supportive programs based structure to specialized program management.

Bayburt University Rector Dr. Selçuk Coşkun and the Deans of the Engineering Faculty also participated in the 35th Engineering Deans Council Meeting.