Abstract:

This study aims to analyze how the role of the university and technology parks administrations have affected on the development of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in changing environment of the Turkish universities. The participants were selected from two different university technology parks. By using phenomenological analysis, six research questions were answered in the semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed in Atlas.ti in order to make depth study. As a result, the data show the globalization has inevitably affected higher education system all around the world in many ways. During this transformation process, academic people have been influenced to a greater degree. Academic profession, which is an umbrella term for working conditions for academics, has changed a lot. Most (89%) participants agree that performance indicators are used to assess and measure individuals, departments and universities against each other; therefore, IRP have gained importance. More importantly, the large number (94%) mentions that these business practices have caused insularity among academics. Additionally, a large number of the (91%) participants agree that the effects would be different on the elite universities comparing to the socially disadvantaged universities, particularly those in Anatolia. They (65%) explain that the future of higher education has been changing in terms of faculty organizations, particularly with new IRP policies. Most (95%) of the participants agree that university administration would develop a threat in order to increase the patent activities so that they have seen job security problems, especially for those faculty members who do not have financial opportunities or/and for those faculty members who come from social sciences. Most (88%) participants articulate that IRP would develop particular problems for public higher education since they do not have enough financial support. Therefore, IRP would change the culture of academic world. Some (41%) of the participants claim that competitiveness is important not only for the universities so that the university administration would change their performance criteria to prepare properly for the competitive global market. These (41%) participants strongly point out that employability is remarkably important for the universities. By improving intellectual property rights and entrepreneurial activities, universities can increase their funding. Hence, they take into account technology parks as the places to develop strategies for different activities to increase income. Furthermore, most (87%) participants mention that the financial autonomy would make the universities aggressive in the market due to the fact that the government is increasingly reducing the support for the higher education. Hence, the university management would try to increase their income by means of the IRP at the technology parks. Even though some (35%) participants point out that IRP would increase conflicts and inequalities, the rest (65%) agree that the role and style of university management like in Wisconsin Madison could manage the universities without conflicts and inequalities. As a result, as most (89%) participants clarify that the university administration play important and crucial role in controlling and managing the conflicts and inequalities through IPR to protect all the stakeholders, particularly those who do not have strong background, like the students.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Technology Parks, University Administration and Management, Intellectual Property Rights, Autonomy.