The Contributions of Higher Education System to The Innovation Production Performance of Turkey: An Empirical Analysis

The functions of universities are changing while the regional innovation systems have a greater importance in development policies. The economic roles of universities can be classified into two groups. These are classical roles and complex roles. Universities, as the most important institutions of knowledge-based economic systems, are determinants of regional and national development, especially by their complex roles. In this context, the aim of the study is to clarify the roles of universities in innovation production processes in Turkey. The study uses random coefficient model as a method for econometric analyse. According to the empirical analyse, public universities, technology development centers and technology development regions have positive contributions to the level of innovation production of Turkey. In addition, the contribution of higher education system is more than the contributions of other factors