From the President: 2nd issue of the Bridge
Dear Friends of TASSA,
Hope the summer has been going well for everyone. At TASSA we have been busy attending conferences, gatherings, and putting together the second issue of The Bridge. We are also very close to completing the reorganization of TASSA, which we hope to announce by the next issue of The Bridge.
As you will see this issue is loaded with news from TÜBİTAK and Ministry of Science, Technology, and Industry. Our feature story is an interview with Minister Nihat Ergün. We greatly appreciate Minister’s willingness to talk to us after a long flight and a lengthy reception at the Turkish Embassy. One of the issues that came up during the interview is the agreement on Scientific and Technological Cooperation between the U.S. and Turkey. For the first time we make this report publicly available. Minister Ergün pointed out that this agreement between the U.S. and Turkey is as important as military agreements between the two countries. I urge everyone to read through it and see how this agreement can be brought to life. Please share your ideas with us.
With this issue we also start a new service where we publish the list of active grants given by NSF. The list is eye opening and very pleasing to see that NSF has considerable investment in Turkey-related research projects.
Few days ago (July 12-13) TÜBİTAK has organized an exciting event that gathered together Turkish scientists and scholars around the world in Istanbul for a two-day Congress. TASSA board members Murat Günel, Aydogan Özcan, Füsun Özgüner, Mehmet Toner participated to this terrific conference. In addition, 2012 TASSA conference program committee member Gökhan Hotamıșlıgil and Poster Committee member Gizem Dönmez were also among the participants. Toner and Hotamıșlıgil were panel speakers and as TASSA president, I was given the honor of delivering one of the opening remarks.
Program, discussion topics, and participant lists are provided in this issue of The Bridge. I must say the First Congress of the Turkish Scientists and Scholars was quite a successful gathering. About 100 scientists and academics around the world and 100 senior officials and university rectors from Turkey had a chance to meet, exchange ideas, and deliberate the ways and means to have Turkish brain power outside Turkey contribute to the economic growth of Turkish economy.
Of course, the focus was on how to integrate Turkish scientists working outside Turkey within the Turkish universities and research centers. Toward this end, Mehmet Toner emphasized the need to improve the doctoral training in Turkish universities. Gökhan Hotamıșlıgil pointed out that a critical mass of Turkish researchers at Turkish universities, who do frontier research are needed if we need to move Turkish economy to the next level.
In my talk, I emphasized the fact that the number of Turkish academicians working in the U.S. is not that large. For example, while there are only 12,000 Turkish students (6,000 graduate students) in all disciplines in the U.S., this number is over 73,000 in South Korea. Thus, we should emphasize finding ways to have large numbers of Turkish students educated in the U.S. and Europe and establish programs to attract them to some of fledgling universities in Turkey.
The discussions during the Congress once again showed the need for a strong TASSA who is able to outreach to its members effectively and find ways to channel their energy and knowledge to the benefit of Turkey. Indeed TÜBİTAK President Yücel Altunbașak in his closing remarks indicated that TÜBİTAK views TASSA as its partner in accomplishing the goal of converting brain drain into brain power of Turkey.
At TASSA we are working hard toward that goal. Once the reorganization is complete and the new structure is in place, our committees will start undertaking activities that will involve many TASSA members. We hope that those activities will create real value and enhance the role of Turkish science diaspora in the development U.S. and Turkish economies.
With that, I wish everyone pleasant summer days. As we are rapidly approaching to the Fall semester I hope you get some rest before the craziness starts again!
Cheers!