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Good practice Imported

TÜBİTAK 1513 — Turkey's Technology Transfer Office Support Program

Türkiye · Ankara · See the Türkiye profile · See the Ankara profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 83% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

TÜBİTAK's 1513 programme funds Technology Transfer Offices in Turkish universities to commercialise patents and broker licensing deals. It gave 88.3M TL to 20 founding TTOs over five years, but TÜBİTAK's own 2024 review found most had low self-sufficiency.

20
Founding TTO universities (2013-2014)
88.3 million TL
Funding transferred to founding cohort (over five years, as of March 2024)
307
Patent applications
143
Patent families
40-80 %
Co-financing rate
TÜBİTAK 1513 — Turkey's Technology Transfer Office Support Program

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey)
Period
2013-present
Keywords
university technology transfer offices, IP licensing, patent commercialisation, university-industry brokering, spin-offs

Context

TUBITAK 1513 is a national programme that funds Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) inside Turkish universities, explicitly to commercialise patents, broker university-industry licensing deals and support spin-off formation. It launched with 20 universities in 2013-2014.

Objectives

To build sustainable, self-financing university TTO capacity through phased, performance-based co-financing (40-80% depending on measured performance) across two phases ('Institutional Capacity Building' then 'Target Oriented Growth', up to five years each, ten years total support per TTO).

Activities

TUBITAK co-finances TTO activity at each participating university, with funding redesigned to be performance-based following a 2016-2017 activity review.

Results

Per TUBITAK's own March 2024 statement, the agency transferred a total of 88.3 million TL to the original 20-university cohort of TTOs over five years. TUBITAK's institutional patent portfolio, much of it processed through this TTO infrastructure, stood at 307 patent applications across 143 patent families in the agency's most recent published count.

Conclusions

TUBITAK's own 2024 statement flagged that most TTOs showed 'low self-sufficiency' per 2016-2017 activity reports, which is why funding was redesigned to be performance-based. Independent peer-reviewed research (Ranga, Temel, Ar, Yesilay & Sukan, 2016) found Turkish university tech-transfer capacity to be early-stage, constrained by low technology/market orientation of research and weak IPR awareness.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), Technology Transfer Offices within each participating university

Conditions for success

  • Performance-based co-financing (40-80%) rather than a flat subsidy rate
  • Long support horizon (up to ten years per TTO) allowing capacity to develop

Common failure modes

  • Most TTOs showed 'low self-sufficiency' per TUBITAK's own 2016-2017 activity reports
  • Independent peer-reviewed research found early-stage tech-transfer capacity constrained by low technology/market orientation of research and weak IPR awareness

Where it fits

Governance type
national government
Scale
national
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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