Turkey’s ability to increase its international visibility and viability as a product development center is contingent in no small part on its ability to simultaneously address all of the elements of the R&D value-creation chain. This is why Tofaş gives special importance to joint design and development projects, to marshalling the resources of local engineering firms, and to working together with Universities. Believing that University-industry collaborations also need to be undertaken in parallel with efforts to develop technology, Tofaş R&D collaborated with sixteen
different universities on about 130 projects in the last fifteen years.
The Tofaş R&D Center also collaborates with Universities in the conduct of seminars dealing with product technology development issues. Since 2011 Tofaş has also been conducting “Benim Projem” (“My Project”), a program designed to encourage Tofaş employees to come up with innovative ideas and work together in developing them. This program has been extended to include the selected graduation projects of about twenty students attending six different Universities.