Chemistry 9th R&D Project Market Award Ceremony to Be Held on 21 November

The 9th edition of the "Chemical Substances and Products R&D Project Marketplace" will be held this year, organised by the Istanbul Chemical Substances and Products Exporters Association (İKMİB) and supported by TÜBİTAK, with the approval of the T.C. Ministry of Commerce. Due to the pandemic, the event will be held digitally and broadcast live on İKMİB's YouTube channel, with the awards ceremony scheduled for 21 November. The Chemistry R&D Project Marketplace, held regularly since 2011, aims to commercialize innovative and feasible ideas with strong R&D potential in the chemical sector. The event will evaluate applications in 6 separate categories: "pharmaceuticals", "medical devices", "paints and adhesives", "plastics and rubber", "cosmetics, soaps and cleaning products" and "basic chemicals". Prize-winning project owners will receive a total of TRY 700,000 in cash awards, comprising TRY 600,000 for ranking projects and an additional TRY 100,000 special award for commercialized projects. [caption id="attachment_104997" align="aligncenter"] İKMİB Adil Pelister[/caption]

Commenting on this year's Chemistry R&D Project Marketplace competition and awards ceremony, İKMİB Board Chairman Adil Pelister said, "As İKMİB, we will hold the 9th edition of our 'Chemistry R&D Project Marketplace' event, which we have been organizing since 2011.

We had to postpone the event that we planned to hold in April due to the pandemic. Applications, which we extended until 9 October 2020, have been completed. On 31 October 2020, we will announce the finalists at https://www.kimyaargeprojepazari.com/ On 21 November 2020, following presentations by finalist project owners and evaluations by our jury panel, we will announce the award winners. We will hold our awards ceremony live in a digital environment."

First place will receive TRY 50,000, second place TRY 30,000, and third place TRY 20,000

Pelister continued: "Our aim is to contribute to the dissemination of R&D and innovation culture and to increase high value-added production and exports through university-industry-government-entrepreneur cooperation. To date, we have received a total of 1,003 project applications over 8 years and provided TRY 1,156,000 in cash awards to project owners. For the 9th edition of our 'Chemistry R&D Project Marketplace' event this year, we received applications in 6 separate categories. In each category, we will award TRY 50,000 for first place, TRY 30,000 for second place and TRY 20,000 for third place. Additionally, to enable award-winning projects to contribute to our country's economy in the short term, we will provide a total of TRY 100,000 in supplementary awards to all projects that are commercialized within one year. Some of the award-winning projects to date have been commercialized and have produced important success stories. Development work continues on many of them. I believe that in order to become a brand and be able to produce high value-added goods, it is necessary to be active in university-industry cooperation. For this reason, as İKMİB, through our R&D Project Marketplace event, we try to support both our students and professionals, and bring new products and projects to our sector. In this way, we contribute significantly to the development of our sector."