Research and Development Coordination Unit

In accordance with the aim of Beykent University’s being a ‘‘research-oriented university’’, the main objective of the Research and Development Coordination Unit is to organise necessary activities for all scientific work to be conducted within the university (publications, projects, patents, industry-focused scientific studies, exhibitions, R&D activities, technology production, and utilisation of information, technology, and innovation produced for public benefit).  To this end, the functions of the Coordination Unit include making the necessary plans to increase the number of high-quality research activities within the relevant unit, creating suitable research opportunities, and ensuring coordination among research units. The Research and Development Coordination Unit works in alignment with the university’s “Research Development and Coordination Board” on identifying and announcing the current state of R&D activities within the unit, generating new knowledge, sharing and disseminating accumulated knowledge, and developing recommendations for the future.

Duties and Responsibilities

Aiming to create a research-oriented university, the Research Development Coordination Unit:

1. Determines and announces the priorities of research to be done to ensure that the unit’s scientific studies to reach the standards of contemporary and developed countries.
2. Carries out encouraging activities to internalise the R&D culture and to foster the education of future research scientists. Strives to take measures for raising awareness of the academic staff about the significance of scientific research, and organises informative meetings on the subject.  To this end, it works to plan and organise a fundamental research education (organising seminars, conferences, national or international congresses, and academic plans, etc.) for scientists of any stages, and to put forward suggestions to the Dean’s Office on the education of researchers in the country or abroad within the scope of the objectives outlined before; to put forward suggestions to the graduate schools on opening new doctoral programmes -particularly in priority fields- and improving the quality of infrastructure for existing doctoral programmes; and to put forward suggestions to the Dean’s Office about the employment of researchers who have completed their doctoral studies and stood out with their high-quality research.
3. Carries out its activities to increase the number of high-quality scientific research, ensuring that the scientific R&D works conducted in the unit with high impact factor are presented in meetings open for academic and student participation, and plans conferences in necessary fields by inviting researchers from the university or from other universities in the country or abroad, allowing academicians and students to attend.
4. Encourages the development of interdisciplinary studies by increasing collaboration among researchers.
5. Develops proposals to support the unit’s international collaborative on R&D-based research and publication production.
6. Offers recommendations to the Dean’s Office to increase existing infrastructure facilities in the unit for scientific research, and to build and develop new research and application units/centres in the fields needed.
7. Make suggestions to improve the unit’s research infrastructure opportunities in accordance with the potential and needs of the relevant region.
8. Creates a collaborative working atmosphere in alignment with the centres/units that provide a considerable infrastructure for research within the unit and university.
9. Ensures the regular compilation and announcement of the current outcomes of the existing research outputs within the unit at the end of each academic year.

9. To this end, the R&D Coordination Unit carries out the following activities: 

• Ensures that the R&D activities (SCI, SSCI, AHCI, national and international publications and papers, projects, patents, etc.) per academician; the number of publications by title, major and department, the distribution of number of publications, the distribution of H-index and citation counts are published annually on the unit’s website.

Organisational Structure

1. The Research and Development Coordination Unit consists of 5 or 7 faculty members, selected from among assistant professors, associate professors, and professors who carry out high-quality scientific research in their fields within the relevant unit and have a high H-index, including the Vice-Dean responsible for research, considering department representation.
2. The candidate members are determined by the Faculty Academic Board based on the above-mentioned criteria, and the members are appointed by the Dean.
3. The Chair is elected from among the committee members at the first meeting.  The Vice-Dean cannot be the Chair of the committee.
4. The terms of office of the members is the same as that of the Dean’s (3 years). New members are elected in the same manner to replace those members whose terms of office have expired or who have left the committee.
5. The committee meets once every four months. An extraordinary meeting can be held at the Chair’s call if necessary.
6. It submits its works annually to the Rectorate Research and Development Coordination Board.