4th National Productivity Congress in Turkey
The 4th National Productivity Congress organized and hosted by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, was held on December 10-12, 2013 in Ankara. Universities, public institutions and organizations, professional associations, nongovernmental organizations and representatives of the business world participated in the Congress. This major productivity event which was opened by an address from the Minister of Science, Industry and Technology lasted for three days and involved an ‘Undersecretaries Session’, an Academicians’ Panel on ‘The Role of Productivity in Overcoming The Middle-Income Trap’, 24 invited papers in 8 sessions and 57 refereed papers in an additional 16 sessions.
Throughout the Congress, all aspects of productivity were discussed concerning industrial labour, capital, technology, occupational safety and health and cleaner production. Productivity improvement methods and cases of good practise were presented, current productivity policies and strategies were discussed and recommendations were developed during the sessions. Invited papers were presented in the thematically organised sessions such as; “Macro Level Environmental Productivity Indicators”; “Current Situation of Sustainable Development in Turkey”; “Good Practices in Cleaner Production”, “Relationship of R&D, Innovation and Productivity”, “Relation Between Occupational Health and Safety and Productivity”, “Productivity in Public Institutions”, “Good Practices of Industry and University Cooperation in Productivity and R&D Implementations” and “Productivity and Sustainability in Agriculture and Food Sector”. Besides the invited papers, many refereed papers were presented within 16 sessions some of which can be listed as follows; “Productivity Promotion Implementations”, “Productivity and Economic Development”, “Productivity in the Finance Sector” etc.
The next national productivity congress is planned to be organised in 2015.