Applicability of the model that successfully matched the US and Israeli firms for R&D projects to Turkey discussed.

ANKARA - TEPAV organized a meeting as a part of the Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP)-Turkey that brought together representatives from institutions that support technology development and the innovation system in Turkey, to have a better understanding of the BIRD (Israel-U.S. Bi-national Industrial Research and Development Foundation) model.

The meeting hosted the director of the U.S. Business Development and BIRD Energy department of BIRD foundation, Limor Nakar Vincent, who made a presentation about the mechanisms, structure and investments of the BIRD model.

“The economic engine that fostered the U.S. – Israeli economic relations…”

Vincent described the BIRD Foundation as “the economic engine that fostered the U.S.-Israeli economic relations”, stressing that BIRD made great contributions to the trade partnership of the two countries. Vincent said:

“Established in 1977, BIRD Foundation has funded 825 projects so far. 30% of these projects belong to the area of Life Sciences, as the research field that can have the highest impact on the people’s lives. BIRD provides grants for maximum 50% of the R&D expenditures of each approved project. Utilizing all channels including social media to match the firms, BIRD is able to get firms to pay back up to 150% of their “conditional” grants upon the successful completion of the project and the commercialization of the product. While the initial funding of the Foundation was 110 million dollars, in total 290 million dollars were granted, 91 million dollars of which was paid back to the foundation. The success rate of BIRD’s conditional grants totals up to 30%. The Foundation does not only support well-established, large companies, but also start-ups.”

Turkey aims to upgrade to high-technology products

TEPAV Director Güven Sak stressed the importance of such cooperation between the U.S. and Turkey and the need for such a matchmaking mechanism. He stated that Turkey needed to focus on finding mentors for its R&D projects, and find a way to shift its production from middle-technology products to high-technology products.

Representatives from the Ministry of Development, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), the U.S. Embassy, Technology Development Foundation of Turkey, technoparks in Ankara and universities attended the meeting.

The meeting concluded with the comments of the participants. A representative from TÜBİTAK added that his institution continues to work with the U.S. authorities on the idea of establishing a similar organization as well.