Turkey eyes collaboration with Qatar in science and technology

Turkishresearch agency, the Scientific and Technological Research Council ofTurkey (TUBITAK) has proposed collaboration with Qatar in several areassuch as space, energy, aviation and many more.“We hope to expand thescope of joint activities as well as the areas of collaboration into anumber of fields such as energy, aviation, space, biotechnology, healthand several more programmes,” Dr Orkun Hasekioglu, vice president,TUBITAK, said in Doha recently.He was speaking at the launch eventof the joint funding initiative on cybersecurity by TUBITAK and QatarNational Research Fund (QNRF).Dr Hasekioglu noted that such acollaboration would immensely help both the countries as well as inmeeting the Grand Challenges specified in Qatar National ResearchStrategy. “Some of the areas where we can work within the expertiseof TUBITAK are designing and building unmanned aerial vehicles, buildinga micro factory for inexpensive electric cars;  water treatment anddesalination facilities, symbiotic cities, building gas turbine internalcombustion engines, building next generation genome sequencingsystems,  building satellites for surveillance and communications,building food processing  plants and detection and counter measures forchemical and biological agents,” continued Dr Hasekioglu. He alsopointed out that there should be a mechanism for the effectiveimplementation of the programmes between both the countries such as  ajoint committee, a co-ordination office, a research centre or all ofthem.Referring to the co-operation between QNRF and TUBITAK oncybersecurity research, he said it would constitute the beginning ofmany other significant, high-impact partnerships in science andtechnology between Qatar and Turkey. “In future calls, we are planningto expand the programme, both in magnitude and scope,” he explained.Accordingto the official, establishing deep collaboration in all fields,  mostimportantly in science, technology and innovation is a top priority forhis organisation. “In 2015, we  signed an agreement to enhanceactivities  in the field of science and technology and innovationbetween Qatar and Turkey. The agreement in 2015 highlighted thatboth the organisations will support science, technology and innovationin both Turkey and Qatar.  It also includes scholarships for students,establishing research centres in Turkey and Qatar that will help jointoperations for developing advanced technologies for  scientists  andengineers,” he added.