The 5th Research and Innovation Workshop was held by our university with the theme of “Collaborations of Research Groups Based on Priority Areas”. Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal, President of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TUBITAK), attended the workshop online.

Our Rector Prof. Dr. Fatih Altun, Rector of Kayseri University Prof. Dr. Kurtuluş Karamustafa, Rector of Abdullah Gül University Prof. Dr. Cengiz Yılmaz, Rector of Nuh Naci Yazgan University Prof. Dr. Ahmet Fazlı Özsoylu, Rector of Düzce University Prof. Dr. Nedim Sözbir, academics and students attended the workshop held Erciyes Cultural Center.

After a moment of silence and the singing of the Turkish National Anthem, Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal gave information to the participants about TUBITAK projects. He said: “In the Century of Türkiye, our eco-system works for an environmentally-friendly, a stable, strong and prosperous Türkiye, which is resistant to disasters, produces high-added value based on advanced technology and shares income fairly. I evaluate the descriptions such as being resistant to disasters, being environmentally-friendly and producing high-added value based on advanced technology as key-words of this meeting held today. We need to keep these 3 keywords on our agenda in order to be a stable and strong Türkiye sharing income fairly.”

Our Rector gave information about our university and said: “With the establishment of the Council of Higher Education, our university was named as Erciyes University in 1982. It is a university with a history of 45 years. The presence of qualified researchers at our university and the effective visions and projects of our former Rectors have enabled us to be stronger today. In this sense, especially our research centers have enabled our university to be at the top in the evaluation processes.”

Our Rector also gave information about the university-industry cooperation and continued as follows: “After we took office, we focused on how we manage these processes as a Research University with the Office of the Dean of Research and Dean of Students. We started to receive the effective results of these structures as projects in the short term. We constantly come together especially with the Office of the Dean of Research and discuss in which topics we have deficiencies. We say: 40% quality, 40% capacity and 20% collaborations. We always evaluate these topics in our meetings. We also hold meetings and make evaluations with our industrialists. While doing this, we are trying to come together not only with the companies in our industry that have research centers in Kayseri but also with our industrialists in the Central Anatolia Region, where there are 75 research centers and with the companies having R&D centers. Our sole purpose is to put forward issues such as what our industry wants from us and what we want from our industry. After doing this, we endeavor to make progress by finding effective solutions together.”

Drawing attention to the fact that our university was open to innovations in many research fields, our Rector added: “We are a university that developed a vaccine when needed. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Aykut Özdarendeli once again in your presence. He continues to work on his studies without slowing down. Apart from the field of health, we are carrying out effective studies in the field of artificial intelligence in the field engineering. Especially the study on the artificial intelligence algorithm developed by Prof. Dr. Derviş Karaboğa, a faculty member of our university, and the studies in this field really make us very strong. In addition, we are doing research in the field of agriculture. Recently, we have been working on sustainable agriculture within the scope of the 1004 project. Actually, another purpose of this meeting is to hold the opening meeting of the 1004 project. This project which has been carried out as a result of the evaluation made by research universities is very valuable for Erciyes University. While following the developments, we take the priorities set by TUBITAK and the Council of Higher Education into consideration. While doing this, we are trying to make these evaluations carried out for universities on a faculty basis.”

Giving information to the participants about the Institutional Data Analytics in Research Management Processes, Dean of Research Assoc. Prof. Gökmen Zararsız said: “Since its establishment, our university has attached importance to the R&D activities and has been continuing to produce significant outputs in the fields of health, science, engineering and social sciences as a research university that has adopted the progress in R&D as a principle.”