TEPAV's research identified that the lack of autonomy across universities in Turkey affected innovation performance adversely.

ANKARA-TEPAV research aiming to shed light on the correlation between the higher education system in Turkey and competitiveness identified that the lack of autonomy across universities in Turkey affected innovation performance adversely.

TEPAV policy note 'How does the lack of autonomy across universities affect the innovation performance of Turkey?' by researcher associates Selin Arslanhan and Yaprak Kurtsal is published.

The note maintained that autonomy is one of the most prominent factors that make significant contributions to the performance of universities and innovation process. The note stated that OECD's definition explains university autonomy with eight factors which are "owning their buildings and equipment, borrowing funds, spending budgets to achieve their objectives, setting academic structure and course content, employing and dismissing academic staff, setting salaries, deciding size of school enrolment and deciding level of tuition fees".

TEPAV's note underlined that countries including United Kingdom, USA, Germany, Japan and France do not have a Higher Education Board similar to that in Turkey and said: "Universities which enjoy high autonomy are responsible for the management themselves; so there is no superior board on top of universities as it is in Turkey."

Turkey's approach and some remarks

The note revealing that research does not depict a favourable outlook for Turkey said concerning OECD's autonomy ranking which also includes the mentioned factors, Turkey ends up being among the countries where universities enjoy lowest levels of autonomy. The note continued: "In Turkey, university autonomy is highly weak and even inexistent in some cases disclosing a puny innovation performance."

The note maintained:

"Turkey should be aware of the worldwide trend to give up the uniform university structure towards self-management of universities. Positive correlation between autonomy has been realized not only by developed but also by emerging economies like India and China which have been making important attempts to improve the autonomy of universities. The need for altering the current growth and industrialization strategy for Turkey is vivid. Turkey is in need of a properly functioning innovation ecosystem in order to both overcome the middle-income trap and improve competitiveness. Universities are one of the most critical components of this ecosystem. For a properly functioning system, research roles of universities should be highlighted, productivity should be increased and the ruptures in the R&D chain should be halted to rapidly overcome impediments to rapid commercialization. To fulfil these, the higher education system must be restructured in line with needs."