Cooperation Between ITU and ITHIB in Education
Istanbul Technical University cooperates with ITHIB (Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters’ Association) to take concrete steps for the transformation in the textile industry, the powerhouse for the Turkish economy, by starting the graduate program.
The program aims to contribute to the training of qualified manpower to lead the development of the technical textiles industry in Turkey and to the development of the R&D potential for companies with a university-industry collaboration.
Istanbul Technical University is launching the Technical Textiles Graduate Program in 2019-2020 academic year, an important example of university-industry cooperation, supported by Istanbul Textile Raw Materials Exporters Association. The program has a multidisciplinary structure including materials engineering, polymers, nanotechnologies and electronics as well as textile engineering.
Gülle says we can reach our “Turkey with a foreign trade surplus” target only by exporting the nationally-developed technology.
Speaking at the press conference for the program, Chairman of Turkey’s Exporters Assembly (TIM) İsmail Gülle emphasized that they initiated this cooperation with vocational schools in the textile industry in particular and that university and industry become more united with the scholarship programs and employment support provided to the students who choose the Textile and Leather Engineering department in May for their undergraduate studies. Gülle added, “As a matter of fact, this initiative gave immediate results. In the 2019 student admission period, the Textile Engineering has become one of the most preferred departments, with its quota almost completely filled. I’m sure we’ll see the same level of interest for our graduate programs. I have full confidence that graduate students from ITU, one of Turkey’s top universities, will both contribute to the academic literature with the theses they will prepare and also bring in added-value to our industry with new production techniques. Besides, our textile and raw materials industry is one of the sectors that produce the most value-added sector with a unit value of 4.3 USD. In this sense, our qualified workforce is one of the most valuable export segments. We, exporters, are aware of this. We should not forget that added-value is the most important pillar of our cooperation. The result which will give us the biggest motivation will be the projects and theses being put in practive and provide added value to our country as a national technology product. We can reach our ‘Turkey with a foreign trade surplus’ target only by exporting the nationally-developed technology.”
ITU’s Vice-rector Professor Ali Fuat Aydın noted that thanks to this program, which is a first in the technical textiles industry, will contribute to the training of qualified manpower who will lead the sector’s development in Turkey and to the development of the R&D potential for companies with a university-industry collaboration. Stating that the students in this program will acquire detailed information about all the processes from raw material to final product in different fields of innovative technical textiles, Rector Professor Aydın said, “The students will gain the ability to design and develop innovative and original technical textile products and evaluate the product quality depending on the end-use area, as well as the potential of creating a competitive advantage in their professions thanks to the interdisciplinary perspective offered by the program. We have prepared a modern and pioneering curriculum for the training of qualified manpower needed in our country for the technical textiles, which is increasingly getting more important both in Turkey and in the world. We will continue our support for the industry through different channels.”
We have to achieve transformation of our industry with technical textiles
Ahmet Öksüz, Chairman of ITHIB, said, “The textile industry is one of the indispensable sectors for Turkey’s economy in terms of production, exports and employment. Within the scope of the Textile Engineering Scholarship and Employment Project which we started this year, we have increased the quota from 42% to 92%, and the department’s base score for admission increased by 100 points. With our focus on university-industry cooperation, we are launching the graduate program in technical textiles for the first time this year. Technological developments are rapidly transforming the world. Under these circumstances, continuing with traditional textile approach will affect the competitive power of our industry in the medium and long term. We have to achieve transformation of our industry with technical textiles. Here we are taking, perhaps, the most important step necessary for this. While Turkey only has a 0.9% share the world export market, our share in the textile and raw materials market is 3.5% and in the EU market it is 15.5%. We need a new vision to maintain and increase this power. We can achieve this vision only through projects such as this graduate program, which we are carrying out in coordination with ITU, one of the most concrete examples of university-industry cooperation.”
Speaking at the meeting, Dean of the Faculty of Textile Technologies and Design Professor Ömer Berk Berkalp said, “The program will be fully in the English language. At the end of the program, graduates will have gained the ability to transfer current developments and studies in the field of innovative technical textiles in their own language or foreign languages.”
