Last year, approximately TL 81.9 billion was spent on R&D.

The Turkish Statistical Institute has released the results of the “Research and Development Activities for the year 2021”.

Accordingly, gross domestic R&D expenditure in 2021 increased by 26 billion 965 million liras compared to the previous year, reaching 81 billion 922 million liras.

While the percentage of gross domestic R&D expenditure in GDP was 1.09 percent in 2020, the GDP ratio increased from 7 trillion 248 billion 789 million liras to 1.13 percent in 2021.

Financial and non-financial companies accounted for the largest share of R&D expenditure at 70.7 percent. Higher education followed with 23.7 percent. The share of government R&D expenditure, including non-profit R&D expenditure, in total R&D expenditure was 5.6 percent. Of the R&D expenditure, personnel expenditure was the largest item with 49.5%.

While 62.4 percent of R&D spending in 2021 will be financed by financial and non-financial corporations, 25.1 percent of government R&D spending, 10.6 percent for higher education and 1.9 percent for foreign funds , flour and other domestic sources financed about 0.04 percent.

NUMBER OF STAFF APPROACHES 222 K

In terms of full-time equivalent (FTE), a total of 221 thousand 811 people were employed as R&D personnel in 2021. Looking at the breakdown by sectors, it appears that in 2021 67.4 percent of the total R&D staff will be in FTEs in financial and non-financial companies, 28.2 percent in higher education and 4.4 percent in non-profit organizations. industry.

The number of female R&D employees in FTEs was 32.1 percent of the total number of R&D employees at 71 thousand 301 in 2021. In terms of sectors, the share of female R&D personnel in FTEs was 45.7 percent in higher education, 30.4 percent in government including non-profit organizations and 26.6 percent in financial and non-financial companies.

32.27 PERCENT OF THE STAFF HAVE DOCTORAL EDUCATION

An analysis of R&D personnel by education level revealed that 34.9 percent of R&D personnel had a bachelor’s degree. This was followed by 31.2 percent for doctorate or equivalent, 24.3 percent for master’s degree, 4.8 percent for vocational training and 4.8 percent for high school and below.

In terms of FTE, the distribution of R&D personnel by educational level is respectively 48 percent for undergraduate, 20.7 percent for master’s, 18.3 percent for doctorate or equivalent, 6.7 percent for vocational training and 6.3 percent for high school and Education. six levels of education.

According to the Statistical Regional Units Classification (NUTS) level 2, TR51 (Ankara) was the region with the highest R&D expenditure in 2021, realizing 31.9 percent of the total R&D expenditure, while it was TR10 (Istanbul) with 28, 5 percent. TR42 (Kocaeli, Sakarya, Düzce, Bolu, Yalova) region with 9.8 percent.

Of the total R&D personnel, 29.5% were employed in TR10 (Istanbul), 19.3% in TR51 (Ankara) and 8% in TR42 (Kocaeli, Sakarya, Düzce, Bolu, Yalova).

52.9 percent of the 57 billion 884 million TL R&D expenditure of financial and non-financial companies in 2021 was realized in R&D centers. 85.2 percent of R&D expenditure in R&D centers was made by companies with 250 or more employees.

When the startups that carry out R&D activities in the manufacturing industry were classified according to their technology level, it was found that 47.5% of the 32 billion 773 million lire R&D expenditure in the manufacturing industry in 2021 was made by the startups engaged in the manufacturing industry. advanced technology activities. In 2015 this was 35.3 percent.

Of the total R&D expenditure in the manufacturing sector, 39.6 percent was spent by companies in medium-high technology activities, 8.3 percent by companies in medium-high technology activities and 4.6 percent by companies in low technology activities.

When looking at the number of researchers in companies that carry out R&D activities in the manufacturing industry, it appears that in 2021 the highest number of researchers was employed by companies with medium-high technology activities, with 24,630 people. This was followed by companies with high-tech activities employing 16,720 researchers.

Given the number of researchers in FTEs, it was established that the highest value was 22,299 among companies with medium-high technology activities.