Yunus Emre Institute and the Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI) have inked a cooperation protocol regarding the Academic and Scientific Cooperation Project of Turkey (TABİB), which is carried out under the auspices of Presidency of the Turkish Republic.

In addition to its global public and cultural diplomatic activities, Yunus Emre Institute also undertakes scientific diplomacy initiatives with a view to promoting Turkey's academic, scientific and technological capacity and potential abroad. To this end, it continues to come up with new cooperation partners within the framework of the Academic and Scientific Cooperation Project of Turkey (TABİB), which has been launched under the auspices of the Presidency of the Turkish Republic. Most recently, the Institute has undersigned a comprehensive cooperation protocol with the TAI to open up its global experience and facilities for use by the TAI.

Production to increase, economy to relieve

Yunus Emre Institute President Prof. Dr. Şeref Ateş, TAI Director General Assoc. Prof. Dr. Temel Kotil and guests attended the ceremony for signature of the protocol, held at the TAI's production facilities located in Kahramankazan district of Ankara. Speaking at the ceremony, Prof. Dr. Şeref Ateş expressed his satisfaction for opening up the Yunus Emre Institute's global network, experience and investments to be used by the TAI. Underlining the fact that scientific diplomacy activities are as important as cultural and public democracy activities, Ateş pointed out that our country should strengthen its qualified workforce by cooperating with the international community on academic and scientific matters. Ateş explained that the Portal developed under the scope of the TABİB will facilitate academic and scientific cooperation between our national institutions and producers and their global counterparts, making it more efficient. Ateş asserted that scientific diplomacy was not a novel concept and it is strategically crucial for Turkey to have its place on this platform without any delay. He drew attention to the fact that the project would drive up the production capacity in Turkey, eventually bringing relief to the Turkish economy. He underlined that this project is of crucial importance for Turkey to overcome the short-term challenges in Turkey's development.

Increased level of qualified human resources

In a speech he delivered during the ceremony, TAI Director General Assoc. Prof. Dr. Temel Kotil made the following remarks: "The supply of qualified human resources is a critical policy for our company and agreements concerning this policy are of great significance. Our efforts to improve our existing qualified human resources are underway. Such initiatives will play a great role in our capacity to implement the big projects requested by the government. In addition, we seek to fuse our human resources with the state-of-the-art technological structures. I believe that scientific and academic cooperation will have a robust, dynamic and innovative impact on our projects. Such valuable cooperation initiative will further enhance existing our human resources as well as IT, scientific and technological structures."

The project's positive effect on how Turkey is perceived globally

Yunus Emre Institute President Prof. Dr. Şeref Ateş stated that the first pillar for implementing the scientific diplomacy is a portal that would fill the gap in this field. Ateş indicated that the primary purpose of the portal developed under this project is to ensure that academic can have access to all up-to-date information, events, calls for projects and other critical links and data through a network and platform containing innovative and production-centered information. Maintaining that another pillar would be the people who would perform the scientific diplomacy task in the countries where the Institute's branches are located, Ateş explained that the people in question will match the universities, techno-parks, private sector players and other research institutions in those countries with the companies, people and topics Turkey needs in the field of science.

The project will make a significantly positive impact on Turkey's perception in the international arena as Turkey starts to take part in major scientific and technological works. In this way, Turkey will be able to attract the attention of the scientific and investment sectors abroad in terms of science and technology. Moreover, the resulting cooperation will ensure that the existing scientific data, academic studies and information can be transferred to the production system in our country and qualified human resources can be created; numerous goals can be attained through global cooperation. Furthermore, the people who conduct academic and scientific research will be able to meet the producers, and the transfer of know-how can be performed so that our country can achieve basic development targets. Under the project, efforts will be made and support will be provided to enable Turkish scientists to participate in international research programs, and the work will be undertaken to make sure that Turkey can contribute to the international policy processes, and the scientific and technological capacity of our country will be improved, and activities will be carried out using Turkey's scientific power to enhance Turkey's prestige in the international system and investment opportunities will be provided and promoted via the network established.

About the Academic and Scientific Cooperation Project of Turkey (TABİB)

The Academic and Scientific Cooperation Project of Turkey (TABİB) has been implemented by Yunus Emre Institute under the auspices of the Presidency of the Turkish Republic. All sorts of activities undertaken under this project aim to improve Turkey's academic and scientific cooperation, contribute to its economic development, ensure know-how transfer, enhance the quality of human resources, conduct scientific diplomacy activities, organize value-added activities and programs, contribute positively to the perception of Turkey in the global platform, use the global arsenal of knowledge and human resources toward the development targets and advertise scientific developments and studies in Turkey in the international arena. Any institution or organization operating in Turkey in this scope is a stakeholder of the Institute. A new and effective academic and scientific network is targeted with the Portal and other software developed within the scope of the TABİB. This Portal and web interface can be accessed at www.tabip.global. The TABİB is a unique, comprehensive and effective projects which will support the activities of our national institutions globally, expand their network via the portal, contribute to the economic development of our country, ensure that our country can make an impact on global policies through scientific matters, enhance qualified human resources, use science as a diplomatic tool, transfer intellectual property rights to our country through projects on global scale, promote our country's potential and scientific breakthroughs in the international arena and make available the advantages of the existing network and investments of Yunus Emre Institute for use by other national institutions and organizations.