According to the SER Academy’s “The Turkiye 2024 R&D and Innovation Report”, the Turkish defence industry has the highest share of public R&D expenditures.
The General Manager of the Academy, Ömer Özdinç, made a written statement regarding the report’s details, the 5th of which was prepared this year. Özdinç stated that they prepared the report in light of the results obtained from dozens of national and international data sets.
Noting that they try to take a picture of R&D and innovation activities in Turkiye every year, Özdinç pointed out the rapid rise in the high technology and software sectors.
Özdinç emphasized that the private sector has started to produce more added value in the mentioned areas and that there is a long way to go.
Also touching on the information in the report, Özdinç said, “The number of R&D employees in Turkiye has approached 400 thousand in 2023, with a lower increase compared to previous years. While R&D employees in the private sector increased by 8.8 per cent, reaching 207 thousand, the number of researchers in the public sector decreased by 7 per cent.” Özdinç pointed out that the highest increase in the manufacturing sector was seen in aviation and defined this sector as the “shining star of the Turkish innovation system.”
The highest share in R&D expenditures in the public sector is defence.
Özdinç reported that the public’s R&D investments increased by 167 per cent and said, “The sector that increased its share in the total public R&D expenditures the most was the defence industry with 43 per cent.” Stating that this sector was followed by agriculture and the fields of exploration and use of the earth, Özdinç drew attention to the fact that higher education expenditures increased less than the public and commercial sectors.
Özdinç also touched upon the distribution of R&D expenditures by region and reported that Western Anatolia (Ankara-Konya) ranked first in this category, and the gap with Istanbul widened in this sense.
Stating that R&D expenditures increased by 90 per cent and its ratio to the gross domestic product (GDP) reached 1.42 per cent, Özdinç said, “In terms of the ratio of R&D expenditures in GDP, Turkiye ranked 28th among OECD countries, and when the 5-year increase is taken into account, it ranked 21st. Despite the high increase in expenditures, one of the important reasons why this indicator did not increase much is the high increase experienced in GDP.”
“The number of companies in technoparks exceeded 10 thousand.”
Özdinç, pointing out that the number of companies in technoparks exceeded 10,000 and employment exceeded 100,000, emphasized that the export amount in these regions increased by 67 per cent annually and reached 2 billion dollars.
Özdinç drew attention to Turkiye’s increased ranking in the Global Innovation Index and stated that this improvement is the result of the structural transformation in the country’s R&D and innovation system.
Stating that the exports of the manufacturing sector have increased and that there has been no change in the company profitability rate, Özdinç underlined that the high-tech sector is the area least affected by the slowdown compared to other technology units.
SMEs stand out in the software sector
Özdinç stated that the number of companies in the high-tech sector increased by 8 per cent, while turnover decreased by 7 per cent in dollar terms.
Özdinç also drew attention to Turkiye’s place among OECD countries in terms of the number of researchers and shared the information, “Turkiye, which is 8th in the number of R&D full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel, ranked second after Estonia in the last one-year increase when the increase rates are considered and ranked first when the 5-year increase is taken into account.”
Özdinç also touched upon the place of SMEs in the high technology and software sector and noted the following:
“In the software sector, SMEs generated 63 per cent of the total income and 76 per cent of employment with a turnover of 206 billion liras. Among these, micro SMEs employing less than 10 people generated a turnover of 40 billion liras, and 1/4 of the sector was employed by these companies. In the high technology sectors, SMEs generated only 17 per cent of the total income in the sector with a turnover of 97 billion liras. Some 39 per cent of the employees in the sector worked in SMEs.”
