Turkey’s investment in STI has recorded a fast-paced increase between the years 1998 and 2009. The results indicate multiple aspects of Turkey’s swift STI impetus that exhibit top level rates of increase. The increasing trends in all major fields of STI were especially accelerated beginning in the year 2004 with the launch and implementation of the Turkish Research Area (TARAL). As a summary of the swift STI impetus between 1998 and 2009, Turkey:

Investment in STI:

• Increased Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) from 2 billion to about 9 billion in PPP $, which has been spurred forth by the launch of the conceptualization of the Turkish Research Area (TARAL) in 2004. Turkey exhibited more than three-fold growth rate, which is almost quadruple the OECD and EU27 averages.
• More than doubled the level of GERD as a percentage of GDP from 0.37% in 1998 to 0.85% in 2009. This puts forth a significant catching-up dynamic towards taking sustained strides to reach the target of raising the share of GERD to 2% of GDP by 2013.
• Exhibited a fast rate of growth in GERD as a percentage of GDP based on growth rate at 129% between 1998 and 2009 and 95% between 1998 and 2008. These rates are by far above the 10.1% for the OECD and 8.4% for the EU27 averages.
• Fostered a business enterprise sector 40% of R&D in 2009 after a rapid climb and emerging dynamic.
• Fostered a business enterprise sector that outspent the government to become the leading sector to fund R&D for the first time in 2005, reaching a share of funding at 41% of GERD in 2009.
• Fostered a business enterprise sector as the biggest investor in R&D with a self-funding that reached 33% of GERD in 1998 in addition to the transfer of funds for R&D to be performed in the higher education sector, which the business enterprise sector also funded.

R&D PERFORMANCE OF TURKEY: HIGHLIGHTS

Sustained a manufacturing sector as the leading performer of R&D in the business enterprise sector based on its share of business expenditures on R&D at 62.3%.

STI Human Resources

• Tripled in quantitative terms the stock of Full Time Equivalent (ETF) R&D personnel to about 74 thousand and FTE researchers to about 58 thousand in 2009 based on 1998 values of FTE R&D personnel and researchers.
• Met its target of 40,000 FTE researchers for the year 2010 much earlier after which the Supreme Council for the Science and Technology (SCST) resolved for 150,000 FTE R&D personnel by 2013, which contribute to technological advancement and the transmission of scientific and technological knowledge to future generations.
• Increased the number of FTE R&D personnel and researchers per 10,000 total employment in 2009 to 35 and 27 from 11 to 9 in 1998, respectively, in which the presence of a relatively young populations is considered as a future asset.
• Put forth noteworthy dynamics in the distribution of FTE R&D personnel by the main performing sectors of R&D activities, i.e. higher education, business enterprises and governmental sectors. These dynamics strike the balance of 43% for the business enterprise, 42% for the higher education and sectors with 15% for the government sector as shares of the total stock in 2009 where it was 60% for the higher education, 23% for the business enterprise and 17%for the government sector in 1998.
• Remarkably increased the stock of FTE R&D personnel in each sector in which the business enterprise sector outformed the higher education sector for the first time in 2009 increasing six-fold between 1998-2009, reaching to 31,5 thousand in 2009. This shows a parallelism with the dynamics of R&D investment.

Scientific Publications and Patents

• Increased its value on scientific publication more than 25 thousand in 2009, nearly four-fold increase between 1998 and 2009 with an exponential rate of increase.
• Is found to be the most dynamic sizeable country leading the catch-up process after South Korea based on an average relative annual growth rate in scientific populations and a share in world total S&T publication output in 2004.
• Experienced a boom in the total number of domestic utility model and patent applications being filled to Turkish Patent Institute, namely nearly ten-fold increase in one decade reaching to 5,430.
• Increased the number of international patent applications being filled to Patent Cooperation Treaty as well as triadic patent families.

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