The Prime Minister of Turkey has announced an R&D Reform Package on 14th January 2016 to increase the share of R&D activities in the Turkish economy from 1% to 3%. Moreover, the objectives of the Package are to increase R&D investments, eligible production, production of high value-added products, skills and employment levels of R&D personnel, the number of technology companies, universities industry cooperation, coordination of incentives to R&D and innovation and strengthening the ecosystem. The main measures of the Package include the following:

  • The least possible number of workers which companies need to employ in order to apply for any R&D incentive will be decreased from 30 to 15;
  • the maintenance limit for technology companies will be increased from TRL 100,000 to TRL 500,000;
  • design centres will be build up and all R&D incentives will be assigned to these design centres;
  • designing actions in technology development centres will be covered by R&D incentives;
  • goods imported for R&D, innovation and designing projects will be free from customs duties.