The effect of innovation on economic growth in Turkey

Providing sustainable economic growth is among the most important economic goals of a country. In today's World, it can be stated that innovation plays an important role in the realization of these goals. Innovation is one of the main factors that determine the level of development of countries. Innovation should be realized efficiently in order to achieve sustainable economic growth. It is necessary to develop science and technology in order to realize innovation. Science and technology are integral parts of innovation. Developing science and technology goes through R&D activities. Businesses and countries use a number of resources and qualified personnel for R&D activities. The innovation system in which innovation is realized, public resources assigned to innovation activities and the incentives for the innovation activities are determined by innovation policies. There have been long and serious efforts for innovation in Turkey for years. These efforts generally failed to achieve realistic targets and could not raise Turkey to the desired level in terms of innovation. Nowadays, the fact that innovation has become one of the main factors determining sustainable economic growth has brought with it the need to examine the innovation process in Turkey and to determine the relationship between innovation and economic growth in this framework. In this study, after examining the concept of innovation, the types of innovation and the effect of inovation on economic growth theoretically, the innovation systems, innovation policies and innovation performances of the most succesful four countries on innovation according to the 2020 Global Innovation Index, namely, Switzerland, Sweden, The United States of America and The United Kingdom are analyzed. After that, the innovation performance of Turkey and the effect of innovation on economic growth in Turkey are evaluated by investigating the implementations about innovation, the institutions in the innovation system and the innovation policies in Turkey.