Citation
Stylios, G. (2014), "Turkish textiles at the VI International R&D Brokerage Event in textile and apparel sectors", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 26 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCST-04-2014-0044
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Turkish textiles at the VI International R&D Brokerage Event in textile and apparel sectors
Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Volume 26, Issue 2.
3-4 April 2014 has seen another successful R&D Brokerage Event in the textile region of Bursa in Turkey with larger participation than ever before. The event had a wide focus and included projects from the textiles and apparel sectors including of course the technical sector which is becoming more important for reasons of adding value and sustainable competition. This event being the sixth in succession was held at Bursa's Merinos Ataturk Congress and Culture Centre, which is the second biggest congress centre in Turkey. The R&D project brokerage summit is the brainchild of Professor Yusuf Ulcay of the Uludag University and it is set up on the basis of promoting project ideas with deliverables and costs, which are peer reviewed and once shortlisted they are printed and discussed with interested companies who can then fund them if successful. This is not the only international R&D market summit in the textile and clothing sector in Turkey but to our knowledge in the world.
Turkey is the ninth largest supplier of textiles and seventh largest supplier of clothes in the world, with 3.8 per cent market share and with an export capitalisation of $5.4 billion it is one of the most important sectors to the Turkish economy. There are nearly 7,500 textile exporting manufacturers with production facilities in Istanbul, Izmir, Denizli, Bursa, Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep. The biggest export market for Turkey is Russia followed by Italy and Germany as it is seen from Figure 1.
The sponsoring partners UTIB and BTSO, industry and government aim to achieve high value-added production and perform sustainable export for the textiles and apparel sectors, by turning project ideas into university/industry partnerships. During the two days, project posters and oral presentations of ideas were being performed promoting numerous bilateral discussions between the university and industry. This year a Turkish Home Textile Design Competition and Award Ceremony were also held in parallel with the main brokerage event. Many categories of textiles R&D project proposals which were short-listed by the evaluation committee were exhibited.
Another excellent innovation that took place at this year's event was the opportunity for students and their tutors to have the opportunity to meet with industrialists to discuss careers during the “Carrier Hours Interviews” organised in parallel with the main event. In this way the students would not only improve their knowledge on new developments, but also have a chance of finding out about employment.
With the main aim to create high value-added innovative products and processes, capable of sustainable export, preferably by cost reduction that new technologies may have to offer, the following topics were covered:
mobiltech; automotive;
hometech and home textiles;
buildtech; construction and building;
protech and military textiles; and
functional clothing textiles.
The quality of the projects proposed has increased noticeably year on year. At this summit, more than 15,000 exporters, industrialists, academics and researchers have been invited from Turkey and internationally.
The event had an extensive organising committee that did an impeccable job and the project shortlist was published in hard copy under ISBN 978-605-85527-1-5.
George Stylios