Rector Prof. Aydın: "We Are Contributing to Regional Development through Collaboration between OMU and Industry"

"Anatolian Meetings", organised in collaboration between NTV and Anadolu Sigorta, was held in the Ondokuz Mayıs University UZEM Conference Hall with students, academics and the Samsun business world taking part.

In the programme, moderated by the Hürriyet Gazetesi writer Noyan Doğan, OMU Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın, Süleyman Ferşat Eldemir, President of the Samsun Association of Industrialists and Business People, Z. Mehmet Tuğtan, General Manager of Anadolu Sigorta, and Gaffar Öney, Head of the SME and Business Banking Sales Division at İş Bankası, took part as speakers.

OMU Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın began her talk by thanking the NTV team and said that Ondokuz Mayıs University was founded in 1975 and, with its goal of becoming a research university, has become one of Türkiye's strongest education and research institutions. Stating that they serve around 53,000 students with 20 faculties, 2 schools, 14 vocational schools, 3 institutes, 28 research centres and more than 6,000 staff, Aydın stressed that OMU holds the accreditation of the Higher Education Quality Council and the TS EN ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System certificate.

Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın stressed that OMU plays an important role in meeting the region's health needs through its health application and research centres. Saying that the Faculty of Medicine Hospitals serve a million patients a year and the Faculty of Dentistry Hospital 300,000, Aydın stated that the Organ Transplant Centre is the only centre in the Black Sea Region able to carry out living-donor kidney and liver transplants and that 634 organ transplants have been performed to date. She also announced that the Animal Hospital serves more than 30,000 patients a year around the clock, providing health care to pets, farm animals, wild animals and street animals.

Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın said that Samsun is a dynamic city in agriculture, trade and industry and stressed that OMU makes an intense effort to fit that structure. She stated that OMU-TTO acts as a bridge between industry and the university and has supported more than 200 projects in the last 5 years. She also said that 46 of 100 national and 20 international patent applications have been registered, that Samsun Teknopark with its 123 firms has completed 350 projects to date, and that KİTAM with its accredited laboratories meets the needs of both the university and the region's industry.

Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın said that the Faculty of Agriculture carries out important research for environmentally friendly and sustainable agriculture. This work includes combating plant diseases, developing plant varieties adapted to climate change and integrating technology into agriculture. She also stressed that Türkiye's first Hemp Research Institute was founded within OMU and that university-industry collaboration has been strengthened with 12 projects. She stated that work on developing various products from industrial and medical hemp continues, and that the Hemp Products Test Centre and its laboratories serve R&D and industry.

Rector Prof. Fatma Aydın said that OMU teaches 4250 students on a total of 13 programmes in banking and economics and finance. Stressing that the Department of Insurance and Actuarial Sciences is the only programme in Türkiye to offer insurance and actuarial science together, Aydın said that with their comprehensive approach to teaching, and with the "7+1" and "3+1" workplace training models, they enable students to gain experience of the sector.