When R&D workforce expansion does not translate into innovation capability: evidence from Türkiye’s Technopark ecosystem

Abstract

Many emerging economies use science, technology and innovation policy to expand R&D personnel, but larger research workforces do not necessarily generate stronger innovation capability. This article examines this problem through Türkiye as an illustrative emerging-economy case, where R&D personnel and researcher numbers have grown rapidly while selected innovation-output indicators continue to signal unresolved capability gaps. Drawing on comparative secondary indicators and semi-structured interviews with 38 managers and engineers in eight technoparks and two R&D centres, the study uses absorptive capacity to interpret why headcount growth may produce uneven returns. Interviews point to four recurring constraints: practical project competence, digital capability, mid-career researcher retention and access to technopark knowledge flows. For science and public policy, the central implication is that workforce-expansion targets need complementary instruments that build and retain qualitative absorptive capacity in emerging-economy innovation systems.