Sumeyye Dilara Dincer and Efe Ozkan
31 January 2025•Update: 31 January 2025
ISTANBUL
British ambassador Jill Morris said the UK and Türkiye have strong ties in the fields of science and innovation and that scientists from the two countries have established various partnerships for research in many fields, including the treatment of diseases, artificial intelligence (AI) and nanotechnology.
Morris was speaking to Anadolu amid Türkiye-UK Science and Innovation Week.
“We’re bringing together leading UK and Turkish scientists and innovators to celebrate and showcase how our academic and research institutions, and the best of our countries’ talent, is creating solutions to the world’s problems,” she said.
Highlighting the value the UK government places on this initiative, Morris said “the UK government places huge value on the level of commitment of the Turkish government and especially TUBITAK over the past 10 years. The first ever Türkiye-United Kingdom Science and Innovation Week 2025 will be a platform to explore opportunities to enhance existing collaboration, bringing together leading researchers, innovators, policymakers and industry professionals. My hope is that this week will inspire even greater collaboration between our two countries.”
Previous UK-Türkiye collaboration
Outlining the pre-existing scale of the partnership between the UK and Türkiye, Morris said that “Türkiye is prioritized under the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s International Science Partnerships Fund, which opened a path for UK and Turkish researchers to jointly bid into a £337 million global fund.”
In addition to the ISPF funding, she noted that “the two countries also work together through the EU Framework Programs like Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, as associated countries.”
Elaborating on how Türkiye-UK Science and Innovation Week 2025 will affect current partnerships, Morris pointed out that thematic areas such as “transformative technologies, resilient planet, healthy planet and animals and plants, as well as tomorrow’s talent” will be aligned with global challenges that both Türkiye and the UK face.
‘Transformative Technologies’
Commenting on the future of Türkiye-UK collaboration in technology and innovation, Morris named this as “necessarily a global endeavor” which brings the UK and Türkiye together in the “transformative technologies” of engineering biology, AI, semiconductors, future telecommunications and quantum technologies.
“Through structures like the Science Commission, our countries will benefit from the expertise of leading researchers to better understand trends and opportunities in these fields. And the increased collaboration within these fields – and in science, innovation and technology in general -- will contribute to tackling global challenges like climate change, antimicrobial resistance and safe AI. And to tackle global challenges at scale, we know no country’s sole effort will be in of itself sufficient. International partnerships – like our fantastic partnership with Türkiye -- are essential,” she said.
