The Research Universities Support Program (ADEP) Evaluation Meeting, organized by YÖK, was held at Sıhhiye Campus Cultural Center, hosted by our university. The meeting was attended by the President of the Council of Higher Education, Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar, Presidential Strategy and Budget Chairman İbrahim Şenel, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Higher Education Prof. Dr. Haldun Göktaş, Executive Board Members Prof. Dr. Naci Gündoğan, Prof. Dr. Erol Arcaklıoğlu and Prof. Dr. Arif Bilgin attended. Rectors, vice rectors and project managers of 21 research universities attended the meeting, including our university's rector Prof. Dr. Mehmet Cahit Güran and our university administrators.
Our Rector Prof. Dr. Mehmet Cahit Güran, who made the opening speech of the meeting, stated that he was honored to host the meeting as Hacettepe University within the scope of the Research Universities Support Program and said:
“Some programs initiated under the leadership of our YÖK Presidency have created excitement, new energy and opportunities for our research universities. One of these is the support programs carried out on behalf of research universities. In addition to ADEP, the faculty and research assistant positions provided within the scope of priority areas have truly created excitement, energy and great motivation for universities like ours, which are well-established, a little outdated and a little dusty. I would like to thank our esteemed President and the YÖK Presidency for their support in this regard. Of course, new opportunities create new responsibilities. As research universities, we are aware of this responsibility and do our best to move our universities to a better position both nationally and internationally.”
Güran also thanked the Presidency Strategy Budget Director and his officials for the financial support provided to research universities and hoped that the meeting would lead to beneficial results, and thanked all participants for their presence and contributions.
The target is to increase the number of universities in the top 500 to 10 President of the Council of Higher Education
In his speech at the meeting, Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar stated that the Research-Focused Mission Differentiation and Specialization Program, which continues with the new vision determined by the Council of Higher Education in 2021, has been successfully carried out with 23 universities.
Özvar stated that the sweet competition between research universities has been positively reflected in the world university rankings published every year by international university rating organizations, especially in the last two years, and said:
"12. One of our goals regarding higher education in the Development Plan is to increase the number of universities in the top 500 in the World Academic Achievement Rankings to 10 in 2028. I believe that all of our research universities have the potential to be among the top 500 in the next 5 years, with their physical infrastructure and academic human resources. "We see that such rankings and evaluations are extremely important in the increasing international student mobility in recent years."
Özvar stated that according to the evaluation results made by the Presidency Strategy and Budget Directorate with 32 performance indicators within the framework of ADEP, resources were allocated to our research universities and that they used this resource to support scientific research projects in the scientific fields with which the universities were paired, and added that thanks to the amendment they made in the Scientific Research Project (BAP) Regulation in 2022, the projects within the scope of support He said that prepayment limits can be increased up to ten times.
Özvar stated that a budget transfer of 503.9 million lira will be made for 327 R&D projects in research universities this year.
Stating that 400 million TL has been allocated to universities within the scope of ADEP in 2024, Özvar stated that a budget of 503.9 million TL will be transferred to a total of 327 projects, together with the figures to be transferred by the universities from their own resources.
Emphasizing that, as the Council of Higher Education, they have adopted a quality-oriented approach as their main mission and that they will persistently continue to implement support programs for research universities for this purpose, Özvar said, “There is a need to increase the research capacity and quality of all our universities. The last 5 years' data show that there is a significant increase in the number of qualified publications. However, compared to the major scientific circles in the world, we still need to make significant progress. We need to increase the number of qualified publications, which is at 45-46 thousand. Our research universities are among the leading institutions that will do this.” said.
“Our discussions about new supports continue”
Özvar reminded that, as a result of their negotiations with TÜBİTAK, a special call was made for projects within the scope of ADEP in the TÜBİTAK Intern Researcher Scholarship Program (STAR) for the first time last year, and said:
“Our 19 state research universities applied for 144 undergraduate scholars to work in ADEP projects. This number increased to 157 in 2023 ADEP Projects. Our negotiations with TÜBİTAK continue regarding new supports for our research universities. We will increase the number of scholarship holders in the coming years. "We continue our cooperation with our relevant institutions, especially our Presidency Strategy and Budget Directorate, to support our research universities in terms of both human resources and research infrastructures."
Presidential Strategy and Budget President İbrahim Şenel said in his speech; He stated that with ADEP, they allocate resources to research universities for scientific research projects, taking into account their annual performance. Şenel explained that within this framework, they increased the amount of funds allocated to research universities from 100 million lira in 2022 to 250 million lira in 2023. Şenel continued his words as follows: "This figure for this year has been determined as 400 million liras by the Budget Law. With the approval of our President, we plan to make the allocations of funds in the near future, taking into account the performances and implementation results of our universities, and transfer the funds to our universities. With the increase in funds, we plan to transfer the funds to our research universities." "We expect it to expand its opportunities for development activities and training qualified manpower, and to increasingly continue its work to serve our national policies and goals."
At the meeting, Higher Education Executive Board Member Prof. Dr. Naci Gündoğan also made a presentation on the number of publications of universities, international rankings and research projects and the sources provided.
At the end of the meeting, where universities shared information about the research and projects they carried out within the scope of ADEP, our Rector Prof. Dr. Mehmet Cahit Güran presented gifts to Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar and İbrahim Şenel.
