Top Turkish entrepreneurs come to Coventry TechnoCentre to identify good practice

Experts from Middle East Technical University (METU) Turkey will be coming together with colleagues from the UK, at Coventry University, to understand and develop successful working models for future Technology Parks.

As the relationships and co-operation across such sites become vital for the success of small and medium sized businesses, The Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations is pleased to welcome international partners to Coventry for this vital dialogue.

The conference is supported by funding from the Newton Institutional Link and the British Council, taking place from 14^th – 16^th July, held at the University’s own TechnoPark. Which is widely seen as a vibrant and efficient example of the inter-organisational working model that these initiatives can promote.

This discussion will enable the research team from Turkey and the UK to develop a toolkit of best practice that can be rolled out across other Turkish organisations. 

Dr Ann-Marie Nienaber, Head of the Trust Research Group at the CTPSR and the lead member of the project team said:

"This conference will develop toolkits for entrepreneurs, universities, government agencies, and technopark administrators to overcome trust obstacles for collaboration and provide relationship-building skills to entrepreneurs to develop and maintain synergies with similar innovative companies."

Nienaber notes that there has been increasing awareness in the UK across high-tech SMEs about the time, cost and quality benefits of collaborative innovation and the value of trust within these relations and that this event will allow this experience to be shared with Turkish colleagues.  This process will enable the Turkish partners to be better equipped with the managerial skills that help enhance performance by using the new toolkit to enable trust building and effective collaboration.

The team convening this event believe the experiences of this partnership could provide a contact point for other British/Turkish university collaborations, and will feedback into future project initiations.