Entry Barriers to the Nanotechnology Industry in Turkey

Commercialization Of Nanotechnology: Literature Review

Although many countries have been developing strategies for the development of the nanotechnology industry since the beginning of the 1990’s, Turkey has been lagging behind such efforts. Not until year 2000 that some steps were taken in this direction. Particularly nanotechnology has been identified as one of the critical sectors for the development of the Turkish economy. In particular a very well-equipped nanotechnology center at Bilkent, one of the most prominent universities in Turkey has been funded by the Prime Ministry State Planning Organization (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı). Following this a number of centers among the ones we have interviewed in this study have been established. However, the commercialization process of the nanotechnology industry in Turkey has been stalled majorly. As mentioned earlier currently there are only thirteen nanotechnology companies in Turkey.

Although nanotechnology is at its nascent stages, it has become apparent that it will cause in stark changes in every area of our lives. Nanotechnology has its basis in many different sciences, and this makes the basic difference when compared with the impact of other sciences. According to Niosi and Reid (2007), the many different underlying pro-genitor technologies, of which have bases in molecular biology, electronics, materials science, physics (optics and quantum) and others, contribute to the composition of nanotechnology and hence this makes nanotechnology as inherently complex and diverse with diverse applications.

The broad spectrum of nanotechnology has lead to the development of various materials. For example, widespread commercial adoption of nanotechnology is growing rapidly; where early commercial applications are focused on the improvement of cosmetics, coatings, textiles and displays (Bozeman, Hardin & Link, 2008).