Özyeğin University and the Ministry of Industry and Technology Jointly Launch the Integration of Rural and Urban Economies Project

Özyeğin University launched a new project “Integration of Rural and Urban Economies” under the auspices of the General Directorate for Development Agencies at the Ministry of Industry and Technology. The project will be led by the Sustainability Platform at Özyeğin University under the academic coordination of Dr. Faik Gür, an OzU faculty member. The project team will also feature Dr. Candan Türkkan.

The Sustainability Platform team will contribute to the project. The project is intended to offer recommendations for the integration of urban and rural economies in order to propel local and rural development in Turkey.  To this end, the project team will develop a comparing and classifying model based on social, economic, cultural and spatial assessments for approximately 150 districts determined by the Ministry.

The study will entail a series of meetings with the public sector, local government, private sector and non-governmental organizations, as well as field trips and the in-depth analysis of data collected. The project aims to offer an innovative perspective to holistic and community-based local development for decision makers, policy makers and practitioners. The project is scheduled to be completed at the end of the year, and the resulting manual will be compiled into a book which will be shared with all stakeholders and launched under the auspices of the Ministry and our University.