Project Contact:
- Dr. Serkan Alkan — serkana@metu.edu.tr
Collaborating Institutes
- METU Design Factory
- METU Bilge İş Platform
- METU Gisam (Audio-Visual Systems Research and Production Center)
About the institution
Middle East Technical University (METU / ODTÜ), founded in 1956, is an international research university which seeks excellence in serving the country, region and the world. It is the first and only university in Turkey to enter the top 100 in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2014 list. This well-deserved reputation is partly a reflection of its leading position in terms of international scientific publications and share of research funds from national scientific research funds, primarily The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) among the most prominent universities of Turkey. Moreover, ODTÜ – as an international research-intensive
university – has also been the leading university in Turkey in terms of depth and breadth of international research projects and the amount of funds generated from research activities. 30-35% of the total revenues of ODTÜ is derived from competitive research funds. ODTÜ has actively taken part in and managed various projects under the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA), especially the Framework Programmes (FP) as well as other international projects, such as COST, Erasmus, NATO, NSF, UN, etc. In this context, as of December 31, 2016, ODTÜ has completed 264 international projects with a total budget of about 562M€ and ODTÜ’s share is nearly 34M€. 139 of these projects were FP projects with a total budget of 487M€, within which ODTÜ’s share is nearly 28M€. In addition to these completed FP projects, ODTÜ is also currently involved in 10 FP projects with a total budget of about 62M€ and an ODTÜ share of about 2M€. Moreover, ODTÜ has 18 H2020 projects with a total budget of 71M€ and ODTÜ’s share is 4,5M€. In terms of national R&D projects, where TÜBİTAK is the leading funding agency, METU has a prominent position amongst Turkish universities with more than 1000 projects having a total budget of 417 MTL (approx. 80 M€).
At any given time, ODTÜ has approximately 400 R&D projects nationally funded by TÜBİTAK and various ministries and 60 R&D projects internationally sponsored, mainly by the EU Research and
Innovation Framework Programmes. This track record translates into ODTÜ bringing in about 9% of the FP-sourced research funds acquired by Turkey till now. Last but not least, it is important to point that the language of education in ODTÜ is English. Moreover, ODTÜ strategically values the prevention of inbreeding by prioritizing the employment of researchers who have had international experience at doctoral and/or post-doctoral level(s). Thus, a significant portion of ODTÜ’s faculty is constituted of incoming researchers from Europe and/or Third countries (mostly USA).