Supports and Incentives for Turkey Are Under Bilgi Cagi Spotlights

Bilgi Çağı Magazine takes the issue of incentives, funds and grants for R&D and innovation which are provided for Turkey, in its September edition. The agenda of this edition where you can find important comments and interviews as well as success stories is technology, R&D, innovation and internet with interesting blog articles and current news.

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September edition of Bilgi Çağı Magazine includes…

The Turkish press got used to the concept of the R & D and innovation / Faruk Eczacıbaşı, President of Turkish Informatics Foundation
Personalized advertising period with Pixage which is a publishing solution of KoçSistem
Where to establish the ICT valley? / Semih Akçomak, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis International Economics Research Officer
Etohum attempts are in Bilgi Çağı / in this edition Karnıyarık.com and Restaurantrehberi.net
The principles for the use of EU FP7 funds and incentives / Nazlı Pınar Taşkıran, Türkekul Attorney Partnership
The latest trends in the ICT field are at ICT 2010 Conference
R&D and global trends: Internationalization of R & D / Notes from National Innovation Initiative – Cemil Arıkan, Executive Committee Member of National Innovation Initiative
Young entrepreneur Yomi Kastro: Software was my ambition, it became my job / Interview with Yomi Kastro, Founder of Inveo
Framework Programmes vitalize Turkcell’s R&D projects / Verda Emiroğlu, Turkcell Technology Research and Development and Corporate Communications Manager
What should be in the future internet TV? Engin Press Advertising and Public Relations Manager
Support must be given at the beginning, not come back afterwards / Leyla Arsan, the CEO of TAGES

In September edition of Bilgi Çağı, the magazine takes the issue of the general R&D trends in the world and important points which will be taken into account in the policy making process of Turkish institutions to make Turkey an R&D centre of attraction. In this context Cemil Arıkan, Executive Committee Member of National Innovation Initiative, stated that OECD creates a report which summarizes the developments of technology and industry in the world in every two years. The 7^th report firsly summarizes the general trends of R&D sector and put them into consideration and in the second part, it explains the factors which were taken into account by multi national institutions to determine R&D investments.

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Leyla Arsan, the CEO of TAGES, stated that Turkey has made great strides about R&D and innovation in the previous years. TUBITAK, Technology Development Foundation of Turkey supports, which were very difficult to receive and not known by people, became more cognoscible and nowadays more people apply for funding. Arsan continued her article by giving examples for supports. Arsan stated that Ministry of Industry and Trade initiated SANTEZ program which supports university and industry collaboration and Techno-Venture Capital supports which are intended for entrepreneurs. EUREKA and EUROSTARS Programmes attract more applications with successful proposals from Turkey. Programs and calls were created not only with the EU but also with other countries by bilateral agreements. TUBITAK has started İŞBAP Programme (The Support Programme for the Initiative to Build Scientific and Technological Cooperation Networks and Platforms (1301)) which aims to support the establishment of cooperation networks and platforms between national and international corporations, units, and groups about the areas such as basic sciences, engineering, health, and social sciences. She stated that although R&D expenses have increased, we are still left behind in terms of innovation. We don’t have a national innovation measurement system. We cannot know if we perform innovation or not by measuring only the R&D expenses. She focussed on what we have done before and what we should do by emphasising the strategic objectives of our country on this issue. She stated that state’s strategy should go beyond increasing R&D share of industry; it should support small organizations by determining and appraising where the real innovation comes from. Supporting start-ups is one of the most crucial point of the triggering innovation; it is necessary to focus on increasing human resources who have innovative thinking, business idea and want to perform them as well as scientific human resource. Arsan also thinks that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce should support the creation of cooperation networks in Turkey.

Faruk Eczacıbaşı, President of Turkish Informatics Foundation, takes the attention to the news coverage on innovation and R&D and gave some statistics in his article that the number of news in the press (except TV) which included ‘innovation’ word was 456 in the previous August. This number increases to 989 when we look at July and August figures. Even we extract the data of reiterated publishment of the same news, news from foreign resources, comments etc., a significant number of news remains. This is the indicator of that Turkish press got used to the innovation concept. Until last years, it was necessary to define innovation before mentioning it but now it is not necessary.

Bilisim Vadisi

Semih Akçomak, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis International Economics Research Officer, explains the reasons to establish an ICT valley inTurkey and where it should be established. He mentions that: Let’s try to explain where the ICT valley should be established by benefiting from the literature which searches the reasons of economical developments. Development of economic literature can be explained with two facts. First of them is the literature which is leaded by Daron Acemoğlu and highlights institutions (such as democracy, rule of law, intellectual property rights). The other one is human capital approach leaded by Edward Glaeser. According to this approach, human capital saves its own effect on economical development even for a long time. He added that the cities had been made centre of attraction by human and social capital; so he questions that why institutions would go to Kocaeli, why an institution from Istanbul or Ankara would prefer to go to a region which is poorer in terms of human capital. He continued his article that he would prefer Ankara instead of Istanbul because of the completion of Ankara – Eskisehir road, which is about 40 km long road surrounding Sogutozu – Temelli area.

For more details of all news: www.bilgicagi.com