Science and technology policy in Turkey. National strategies for innovation and change during the 1983-2003 period and beyond

Summary

An evaluation of Turkey's science and technology (S & T) policy in the last two decades has been made by using various indicators of S & T and technological innovation. National trends in inputs for research and development (R & D) activities, publication output and patent data have been studied for the implications of the S & T policy from 1983 to 2003. Some of the findings on the outcomes of policy measures in terms of inputs to R & D and publication output are as follows: (1) Total R & D expenditure, as percent of gross domestic product (GDP), increased from 0.32% in 1990 to 0.67% in 2002, (2) the fraction of R & D in the total expenditure for technological innovation increased from 6.6% in 1995-1997 to 29.2% in 1998-2000, and (3) the number of papers in the journals covered in the Science Citation Index (SCI) of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) increased from 464 in 1983 to 12160 in 2003 - a more than 26-fold increase in the last two decades.