Financial problems on technology development centers

University-industry cooperations, which are set up in two different ways, namely Technology Development Centers (TEKMER) and Technology Development Zones (TGB) in Turkey, are organizations aimed to support the creation and development of new high technology based firms in order to provide economical development and create competition advantage to countries all over the world especially after 1980s.The aim of this study is to define TEKMER and TGB concepts, to explain the operation and benefits of these organizations, to introduce current status of them in Turkey, to determine financial resources which can be used by companies located on them, to find out how these resources are used in Turkey, to detect problems encountered during access and usage of these financial resources, and to offer solutions to these problems.Within this study, a survey has been performed with the participation of 30 companies located on METU TEKMER, METU Technopolis, and Hacettepe University Technopolis.The results of the survey are given below:The three top financial resources used by companies are funds supplied by founders themselves, friends and family; government support programs and commercial bank credits respectively.The mostly used government support programs are KOSGEB and Tubitak?TEYDEB funds.The companies are not aware of business angels and venture capital (VC) financial methods enough, and the European Union (EU) programs to which they can apply in order to provide funding.The scarcity of VC companies and insufficiency of VC legislation causes difficulties for venture capital industry.The commercial bank credits are not used enough, because of the high interest rates and guarantee requirements. The companies are not aware of the institution KGF, which is founded to improve this situation.The excess application procedures and bureaucracy cause problems for the usage of government and EU programs. Especially, new established companies avoid this bureaucracy.The tax advantages provided to the companies located on TGBs are considered as sufficient by the companies, however, they consider the legislations related to TGBs to be insufficient.