The 3rd meeting of the University Advisory Board established by the Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMU) Rectorate, bringing together the university, city and business world in order to strengthen the relations, was held at OMTEL Hotel under the season moderatorship of the Ministry of Health Dr. Ahmet Demircan.

OMU Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç shared information about the last year of the university in the meeting attended by guest participants besides University Advisory Board members. Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Vedat Ceyhan shared information about the works of the On-demand Workplace Education Commission, which was established during the 2nd meeting of the Advisory Board. The meeting, where OMU lecturers Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sinan Engin and Dr. Mustafa Mortaş introduced their patent works in their own fields, ended with a general assessment.

"We came to a stage for where ideas started transforming into projects and products for Samsun and Turkey"

Delivering the opening speech of the meeting Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç said: "One year has passed since the establishment of the University Advisory Board. Up from the day we took office, we started works right away to establish the University Advisory Board as we believed that it was essential to bring together university-city, university-industry and university-civil society organizations and that this had to be done on an institutional platform. Today, we are holding the 3rd of the board's meetings and have formed a good cooperation. We have seen that ideas, which will become very important for Samsun and Turkey, transformed into projects and has today reached the stage to become products. Today, we will share the patents of our academic staff. Our university wants to create value with its products for Samsun and Turkey. Our aim is to continue works in that direction."

"We will support our sister university with all our team and facilities"

Reminding that a second university will be established in Samsun in the near future, Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç stated: "I would like to say that as OMU, while developing our own university, on the one hand, we will do our best with all our team and facilities in order for our sister university to develop, grow and become able to give contribution in a short time."

"Samsun gained its second state university"

Minister of Health Dr. Ahmet Demircan spoke as follows: "There’s no city left without a university during our rulership. We’re gradually increasing the number of universities in our cities, and Samsun is one of them. Our city gained its second university now. This good news was announced to the people of Samsun last week by the president himself. Universities are centers which enhance the technology and knowledge as well as producing science and information. The ideal image is that the universities carry on the common life and mission as the cities they are in. We are here on occasion with the advisory board which integrates the universities with the cities and establishments within them to plan the future, to carry the folk’s demands to the university and hands out the studies to the people. We’re closely monitoring Samsun’s development and in this meeting, we’ll talk about the needs of our university and the demands of it towards the future."

"We will talk about our accomplishments in our next meetings"

After the opening speeches, Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç performed a presentation about OMU’s works for the past year and the fields the university gained acceleration at. As he explained the development of the university in a year with numeric data, he added: "We don’t want to be brought to agenda with the buildings built, number of student or employees anymore, but as we have here a team gathered who has to know about the events that took place, I will be talking about these things briefly. In our next meetings, we will talk about our accomplishments. Where were we? Where are we now? What did we produce? Hopefully, we’ll be sharing these matters next time."

Starting with information about education and training, Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç pointed out the increase in the number of international students from 98 different countries and stated that they aim to raise the numbers even higher.

Rector Bilgiç cited the university’s budget for research and innovation and the projects they applied for. He stated that a budget of nearly 17 million TL was used for the projects. Pointing out that OMU is ranked 17th among other universities in Turkey and in the first 1000 globally, Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç told that the studies for bringing the numbers higher are gaining speed.

"Primary study fields are determined"

The primary study fields were determined to use OMU’s sources efficiently. Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç listed those fields as follows: Climate change and its effects, smart systems, aeronautics and space, development of innovative devices, material and healthcare models in the health field. Stating that the government has determined some issues as well, Rector Bilgiç told they’ll evaluate these matters as OMU.

"We have the potential to advance in the medical and aeronautics fields"

Delivering information about the activities of Samsun Technopark and OMU Technology & Transfer Office and the publications and thesis studies of academicians, Rector Bilgiç also gave information about the working process of patents and beneficial models presented at the Advisory Board’s 2nd meeting. Sharing OMU’s new project offers with participants, Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç underlined that as OMU, they have a great potential to advance in the medical and aeronautics fields.

"Important progress has been made on workplace education and industrial application"

Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Vedat Ceyhan, taking the floor after Rector Bilgiç, mentioned  "mandatory/on-demand workplace education" and "industrial application" which aim for the students to be trained for the business life and which were the main topic on the previous university advisory board meeting. Ceyhan also spoke about the progress on the matter: "We’ve seen that the industrial sector is willing to embrace the university for workplace education. In the near future, the president of the chamber commerce and industry handed us the list of the workplaces and students they could afford to intake. We took action immediately as the university representatives of the commission. We made necessary changes on the curricular system to expand starting this September the on-demand workplace education, which’s already practiced only at 4 departments in the Engineering Faculty, and the industrial application in which’s already practiced in 1 department. We determined our working procedure and principals and learning outcomes about the workplaces. We worked out our standarts about where to work and reached an agreement on protocol and contract texts."

"Vocational schools will take part in the process"

Sharing the demand of OMU Vocational Schools to join the process, Prof. Dr. Vedat Ceyhan told that Samsun Vocational School, Terme Vocational School and some other vocational schools have finished their curricular updates and negotiations with the workplaces to shift to the workplace education with all the departments. Prof. Dr. Ceyhan added that the workplace education and industrial application process went through the Higher Education Council of Turkey (YÖK) and that they made various applications to YÖK.

"As the Ministry, our door is always open"

The Faculty of Medicine Surgical Sciences lecturer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Sinan Engin performed a patent presentation of the device they developed for the use of myopathy treatments. Stating the patent required R&D studies to become a product, Engin said: "I suspended my foreign negotiations about the device when a team from OMU contacted me about my study. Immediately we got in contact with the Ministry of Development to enhance R&D studies.

After Assoc.Prof. Dr. Engin answered the questions of participants, the Minister of Health Dr. Ahmet Demircan said to Engin that they are ready to support them as the Ministry at all matters and that their doors are always open.

After Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Sinan Engin, Dr. Lecturer Mustafa Mortaş performed two patent presentations about hazelnut milk producer from leftover hazelnut puss after cold-pressed hazelnut oil and a tool to measure the HMF amount in sugary products called "furfura indicator" and answered the questions from participants.

"We are Samsun together"

At the wishes and requests part of the meeting, saying "We are Samsun together", Rector Prof. Dr. Sait Bilgiç drew attention to how important the University Advisory Board’s function is to bring together the university-city and business world. 

"Samsun will become a city of health, agriculture, industry and science"

After the presentations, a general evaluation was made, and Minister Dr. Ahmet Demircan made a statement to press members. Giving broad information about the meeting’s content, the Minister talked about the investments to be made to Samsun in the health field. "The University’s works have made us happy and hopeful towards the future. In our country, we’ll face hardships unless we get to the point of generating information and technology and establish unity and solidarity. Therefore, we think our universities, science nests are of great importance. Now, Samsun will have its second university, and this city will become a city of health, agriculture, industry and science."

The University Advisory Board meeting ended after the statement to the press by Minister Dr. Ahmet Demircan.