National Defense Ministry’s 1st Defense Technologies Day Event was Held

The Ministry of National Defense held the 1st “Defense Technologies Day” recently on April 12th at the Bilkent Hotel in Ankara. The event was organized by SaSaD and Defence Turkey magazine, under the coordination of the Ministry of National Defense, with the main theme of R&D and Technology Management within the scope of the defense industry.  Numerous distinguished guests from the National Defense Ministry, Service Commands, Defense Industry Companies, Universities and Governmental Institutions and Associations attended the 1st Defense Technologies Day. 

The Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Turkey, Mr. Ismet Yılmaz made the opening remark of the panel and stated that Turkey had lacked such an event gathering all the shareholders of the defense industry and he believed that this event would be filling an important gap in this area. Minister Yılmaz said, “We need to gather with our solution partners and make an analysis on where we are and where we should be heading.  Which type of a synergy should we create in order to reach our goals? How could we reach our aims through the most rapid and economic solutions? In order to explore all of these questions, we should come together and create a common force and mind. All the institutions, associations and affiliates should take part in these types of events toward enabling Turkey to create a strategy with the help of these participation events”. 

Turkey is striding forward towards its aims. Minister Yılmaz mentioned that the country covered a lot of ground in the last ten years and added, “Our foreign dependency used to be around the level of 80%. Today we are able to cover 60% of our requirements. We have two notable company brands in the list of the world’s greatest 100 companies and a third company will be entering this list in the upcoming period. Our production capacity and sales exceeded $ 5 billion presently, our exports exceeded $1.5 billion but this figure is still not deemed enough”.

Adding, that the qualified staff employed in the Security and Defense domain should be equipped with superior technologies for the full accomplishment of their tasks, Yılmaz said, “How will we increase the technological capacity of our Army, our Security Forces and our National Intelligence Organization? We need to exert the utmost effort to this end. We will be continuing to give all the required support in a determined manner in order to reach the targets”.

Gains acquired from the projects will be examined systematically 

Undersecretariat for Defense Industries Technology and Coordination Assistant Air Pilot Major General, Şaban Umut, mentioned that the Turkish General Staff, Armed Commands, National Defense Ministry, Universities, Research Institutes and Defense Companies active in the defense industry have gathered with this panel and continued, “We realized that this panel came brought us together in order to offer solution suggestions, for the evaluation and improvement regarding the technology management of activities based on R&D and technology composed of processes such as needs identification, design, prototype production and serial production.  Also, the panel gathered to discuss all the propositions for conducting R&D activities in a more efficient and coordinated manner with all the shareholders”.

Major General Umut stated that all the gains acquired from the projects on defense, R&D and technology executed within the country and the current status in the world would be brought to the table at the panel and he expressed that long term planning of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), R&D studies and the project process executed by the Ministry of National Defense will be shared.  He stated that all the shareholders will be informed on the reorganization studies regarding the R&D process of the Turkish Armed Forces, that TUBİTAK’s R&D support will be presented, the research infrastructures regarding the policies of science, technology and innovation and the novelties brought forth, along with the legal regulations will be introduced.  Suggestions considering emphasizing the importance of the cooperation between universities and industry’s research centers and for their launch will be taken into consideration throughout the panel.

Following the opening remarks, the first session of the day was entitled Defense R&D Project Process Management.  Undersecretariat for Defense Industries Technology and Coordination Assistant Air Pilot Major General, Şaban Umut, was the moderator of the session; various presentations were made on R&D studies in TAF 2033 change and transformation plans, MoD R&D project management principles, SSM R&D technology management, R&D projects on Defense, Research infrastructures in Science, Technology and innovation policies and novelties emerging as a result of legal regulations and R&D from the perspective of the industry and expectations. 

During the second session of the event, the panel on Government, Industry and University R&D cooperation was conducted. Throughout this panel, presentations were given on the Distribution of roles in institutional cooperation, Effective and sustainable R&D implementations approach in the defense industry, Innovative approaches in technology management and university contribution. 

In the concluding session of the event, the R&D implementations of the NATO/STO and new methodologies in technology were examined. Moderated by Prof. Nafız Alemdaroğlu from Atılım University, new techniques and holistic views in technology development regarding NATO’s organization on Science and Technology, Turkey-NATO STO interactions, future technologies within the scope of NATO STO and R&D activities were discussed.