AN EVALUATION OF TURKEY'S POSITION IN THE INNOVATION PROCESS

Abstract

The aim of the study is to analyze the point reached by the Turkish economy in the innovation process, which is the most important component of the Industry 4.0 strategy. For this purpose, Turkey was compared with selected country examples using innovation indicators in the international economic literature. The main indicators of innovation are; Innovation Index, Research and Development (R&D) Expenditures, Information Technology Exports, High Technology Exports and Patent Applications by Residents. The most important result from the comparison is that Turkey is far behind in other innovation indicators, except for the patent application of residents. In particular, information technology exports, percent of total goods exports and high tech exports, percent of manufactured exports have very low value in Turkey. This result implies that Turkey's export goods have low technology and added value. It will be a rational approach for Turkey to focus on innovation in order to get closer to the Industry 4.0 strategy and to focus on R&D investments for innovation.