Turkey Territory Update February 2017 1 © 2017 ACCUCOMS International BV

Turkey Territory Update February 2017

ACCUCOMS Team Eyad Mohammad - Commercial Manager, MENA & Turkey

With a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from University of Jordan, and a CMA certificate, Eyad has over 15 years of sales, marketing and management experience in publishing, logistics and telecommunications. Having lived and worked in several countries of the MENA region, Eyad has deep understanding to diversified cultures and business environments of the region. He speaks Arabic, English and French and he is located in Amman, Jordan. Contact Eyad via [email protected]

Baris Oguz Yilmaz - Regional Manager, Turkey

Holds a degree in Nuclear Engineering from Hacettepe University. Baris is Turkish, and his undergraduate education provided him with excellent use of English. His skills in social communication and interaction, made him a new member of our team in March 2013. Baris is located at ACCUCOMS’ Ankara office in Turkey. Contact Baris via [email protected]

Pinar Teke - Regional Manager, Turkey

Has a bachelor’s degree in Information Management from Hacettepe University and Public Relations from Anadolu University. Pinar has more than five years of experience within the Turkish library market. She is now responsible for growing our publisher sales in Turkey. She is Turkish and speaks English fluently. Pinar is located in Istanbul, Turkey. Contact Pinar via [email protected]

ACCUCOMS represents in Turkey:

Recent Events On July 15th 2016, a coup d'état was attempted against state institutions and President Recep Erdoğan. The coup failed, but the aftermath of the coup attempt and current engagement in military operations in Syria made Turkish economy face geopolitical headwinds and unsettled political conditions. Furthermore, Turkey suffers regular explosions/terrorist attacks in central cities in the country.

GDP growth is estimated to have slowed to under 3% in 2016, but is projected to pick up gradually to around 3¾ per cent by 2018. Uncertainties are high, causing a currency increase, but fiscal, prudential and monetary policies are supportive and should spur household consumption from late 2016 onwards. New and generous incentives have been introduced to stimulate business investment, which, however, has stayed subdued so far. For private investment to pick up, it is important to durably restore confidence by implementing high-priority structural and institutional reforms.

Library Update Since July 2016, there have been lots of changes in Turkish Universities, especially in state universities. According to Turkish government, the people behind the coup attempt were mostly infiltrated in the Turkish education system, in addition to the military. Turkish government declared a state of emergency for three months, which was later extended another three months, and all government personnel are going through an investigation.

Directly following the coup attempt, the government closed fifteen private universities which were claimed to be funding the terrorist group that they consider to be behind the coup attempt. The buildings of these universities (not students or employees) were transferred to their guarantor universities. Their budgets were completely shut down, and all payments stopped indefinitely. The students were transferred to other private universities, but most employees are out of jobs now.

The universities that were closed are: • Ipek University(Ankara) • Turgut Ozal University(Ankara) • Bursa Orhangazi University(Bursa) • Zirve University(Gaziantep) • Canik Basari University(Samsun) • Kanuni University(Adana) • Selahattin Eyyubi University(Diyarbakir) • Izmir University(Izmir) • Fatih University(Istanbul) • Gediz University(Izmir) • Meliksah University(Kayseri) • Suleyman Sah University(Istanbul) • Mevlana University (Konya) • Murat Hudavendigar University • Sifa University(Izmir) (Istanbul)

Besides that, Turkish government asked all deans and rectors of government universities, which was about 1500 people, to step down immediately. At the time, government officials did not know which ones were supporting the coup and which ones are not, so this was the easiest option. During the state of emergency, the government furthermore suspended thousands of people working in universities at both academic and management positions. Some of them were expelled, some are still going through investigation and a very little portion of these people came clean and returned to their jobs.

In the aftermath of the coup, ACCUCOMS tried to get as much information as possible from librarians at Turkish universities about their current situation. Most of these university libraries were somehow affected by the coup attempt, mostly because of management changes in the university (and in some libraries). Library budget holds a big portion of university budgets in Turkey, and the new people in management positions are usually very cautious and unwilling to spend any extra money on new subscriptions. Even at the universities where management was not changed, they have started to behave more cautious now because of the ongoing investigations.

Affected how? Not affected?

Not affected Budget 32% 43%

Management problems Management and Budget 14% 11 %

Figure 1 – Chart showing how the institutions are affected by the aftermath of the coup attempt

Expectations for the Future The expectation is that, despite management changes at many universities because of the coup, current business will go on as it did before. However, the circumstances have caused an unstable Turkish currency, with foreign products becoming more expensive. Because librarians are unsure about the exchange rate when they will pay for their subscriptions, they are a bit cautious to renew subscriptions. With an uncertain foreign value of their (often decreased) budget, the new sales expectancy in 2016 and 2017 is much lower than it was before. ACCUCOMS expects that new sales in Turkey will be about half of the 2015 achieved sales, at best.

The attendance of Turkish librarians and companies of the annual ANKOS conference, held in April 2017, is not expected to be affected. The fear however exists that publishers from outside of Turkey will hesitate to attend. ACCUCOMS will have its team present as usual, and will represent the following publishers at ANKOS:

American Academy of Pediatrics GeoScienceWorld American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Institute for Monetary Fund American Medical Association Independent Scholarly Publishers Group American Society of Civil Engineers Mary Ann Liebert American Society for Microbiology Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences American Society of Mechanical Engineers Rockefeller University Press

Are you interested in knowing the full extent of the changes in Turkey, or are you also interested in the exhibition representation packages available at ANKOS (and other events worldwide)? Contact Rasmus Andersen for more information.