VitrA Innovation Center Wins First Prize

VitrA Innovation Center Wins Top Prize The 8th R&D and Design Centers and Technology Development Zones Summit, organized by the Ministry of Industry and Technology, took place on 12 November at Bilişim Vadisi. Awards for successful centers and zones were distributed at the ceremony held as part of the summit, based on the results of the 2020 Performance Index. At the ceremony where a total of 42 awards were presented, VitrA Innovation Center received the first-place award in the C category. The award, presented by Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank, was accepted by Boğaç Şimşir, Innovation Director at Eczacıbaşı Yapı Gereçleri. Established in 2011, VitrA Innovation Center was selected five consecutive times as the most successful R&D center in the glass and ceramics sector during 2013-2017 according to the Ministry's R&D Centers Performance Index results. In 2017, it also became Turkey's second most successful R&D center. In 2019, the index was restructured to evaluate outputs from projects conducted not only in R&D centers but also in design centers and technology development zones, and award categories began to be determined based on the number of R&D personnel rather than sectors. In the index where those employing 15-35 R&D personnel are evaluated in Category A; centers with 36-50 employees are in Category B, those with 51-75 staff are in Category C, those between 76-250 are in Category D, and those employing 250 or more R&D personnel are evaluated in Category E. VitrA Innovation Center earned the first-place award in Category D in 2019 and in Category C this year.