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The target: immigrant doctoral students

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For many years, Turkey has been striving to establish a more value-added system in the field of R&D.

The efforts that began during the Tanzimat era are still in the crawling stage.

ITU, whose foundations were laid in 1773; the scientists who barely escaped with their lives from Hitler before World War II and fled to Turkey; METU, established in 1955; and TÜBİTAK, established in 1963.

All these initiatives were implemented to benefit more from science.

However, the desired goal could never be reached.

In fact, we have remained far from it.

Actually, the intentions were pure.

However, losing our super-brains—a gift of nature to us—to the West causes us to fall far short of our target.

We are losing the brightest children to religious schools.

From there, these brains migrate either to Germany or America.

Other bright children studying at Boğaziçi, METU, and ITU follow the same path of migration.

It doesn't work with those who remain.

So, what should be done?

First, let us accept this.

It does not seem possible for us to put these brains, nature's gift to us, on a path of reverse migration.

We do not have such a policy.

In that case, we should focus on other regions of the world that cannot utilize their bright children.

For example, we should develop a project for the Muslim children of the Indian region.

We can start by creating a migration path to our country for higher education for these children, who are both intelligent and hardworking and are raised within the Indian education system.

If the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities covers their living expenses and the Ministry of Youth and Sports covers their accommodation, we as universities can cover their tuition scholarships.

If we can integrate 50 thousand students into this migration path within the scope of this program, within 20 years, Turkish universities will both rise to the Ivy League level and we will truly fulfill the requirements of the Industry 4.0 concept.

Private universities, in particular, have the ability to act more agilely in this regard.

With academics who have high public experience within their structures, they are only teaching classes and cannot conduct research.

Otherwise, there is no possibility for us to join the cluster of countries with a GDP of 50 thousand dollars.

Consider it my advice.