13 November, 2023

As part of the SME Cluster Growth Project MTU and ITU co-organised an online mobility event on the 5th October for Irish and Turkish SMEs to meet and share perspectives. The event was designed to provide the SMEs with information on innovation and collaboration with HEIs from both countries and breakout rooms were created to facilitate sharing between the SME representatives. Two guest speakers presented, Liam Lewis from CAPPA (Centre for Advanced Photonics & Process Analysis), an industry-led applied research group working in the fields of optics and photonics in MTU and Yunis İsmayil from İTÜ Çekirdek.

Liam Lewis presented on the many projects they have worked on with SMEs solving problems. One of the participating SMEs had completed a project with CAPPA and spoke of how significant this work was in catapulting their business forward.

The SME representatives provided feedback on the event which was very positive. Connections were made on the day and the Extended Campus hopes to organise more of these events in the future based on participant feedback.  We know that often smaller organisations face more significant challenges in connecting with Universities and we are here to make those connections more straightforward.