Istanbul Collaborative (IC) is an adhoc research initiative, or thinktank, that emerged with the active contributions of M. Pınar Mengüç from Özyeğin University, and Kürşat Şendur and Ali Koşar from Sabancı University, in early 2009. The main mo tivation of this initiative has been to explore the problems related to micro and nanoscale heat transfer and to develop solutions and strategies in key areas such as energy transition, informati on technologies, defense industry, sensor techno logies, advanced material technologies, in Turkey and elsewhere. 

Later, Hakan Ertürk from Boğaziçi University and Tuba Okutucu-Özyurt from METU (now at ITU) joined to IC and have contributed to our interdisciplinary research activities on multiu niversity platforms. Vincent Loke, who started wor king with Mengüç in 2010 at Özyeğin University has also heavily contributed to these studies during his 1.5 years in Istanbul. Another researcher who was involved in IC was Azadeh Didadri who received her PhD from OzU in 2017.

Istanbul Collaborative was a bottomup and voluntary initiative and has played significant role in the implementation of many important research activities in Turkey over the past 12 years. The work of this group has started with the EU Marie Curie and TUBITAK 1001 projects that Mengüç received in 2009. Kürşat Şendur, Ali Koşar and M. Pınar Mengüç have received two other projects from Bosch Siemens. Later, Tuba Okutucu Özyurt and Mengüç have received a second TUBITAK 1001 project on nearfield radiation transfer and completed it in 2018.

 

As a result of the research conducted under the umbrella of Istanbul Collaborative, more than 35 peerreviewed international journal articles were published, dozens of conference presentations were made, and 2 international patents were gran ted. These patents are based on the joint resear ch by Ali Koşar, Kursat Sendur, and Menguc. The first of these patents was received the second prize in the “Yıldızlı Patentler” competition held at Yıldız Technical University in 2014. The second one won the Silver Medal given by the Ministry of Industry and Technology in 2019. This second patent, titled “Flow System For Avoiding Particle Agglomeration was listed as a triadic patent, as It was accepted by the American Patent and Trademark Office (US10837604B2), after being approved by Japan Patent Office (JP6559363B2) and European Patent Office (EP3365627 (B1)). There are less than 20 triadic patents in Turkey and fort hat reason they are considered very prestigious. This patent aims to provide an innovative solution for the problem of particle agglomeration, and it could pave way for implementations of nanoparticles to various in dustrial applications.

Many scientific meetings were held by the Istanbul Collaborative over the years. One of the most important of these meetings was the “Micro and Nanoscale Heat Transfer” Workshop organized under the leadership of Ali Koşar in July 2014, with M. Pınar Mengüç and Kürşat Şendur as invited speakers. In addition to these activities and research outputs, the partnerships realized under the Istanbul Collaborative umbrella also played an important role in training qualified researchers. As a result of these partnerships, several students who received their master’s and doctorate degrees at joint collaboration between Özyeğin University (OzU), Sabancı University (SU), Boğaziçi University (BU) and Middle East Technical University (METU) have developed significantly broader interdisciplinary research perspectives.

Several of these students are now working as rese archers in various countries. They can be listed as: Rüştü Umut Tok (from SU) at the USA University of California, Los Angeles; Refet Ali Yalçın (from BU) at the Université de Poitiers in France; Erdem Öğüt (from SU) at Germany Friedrich Schiller University Jena; Muhsincan Şeşen (from SU) at Imperial College; Azadeh Didari (from OzU) at Hanbat National University in South Korea; Muhammad Ali Keçebaş (SU) at Pennsylvania State University, USA; and Farhad Kazemi (from BUOzU) at Ford Otosan Turkey. Moreover, Elif Begüm Elçioğlu (from METUOzU) works as a faculty member at Eşkişehir Technical University and Laythy Al Gebory (from OzU) in Iraq Baghdad University. In addi tion, students who contributed to IC on graduate level continue with their careers as follows: Kurt Webb (from OzU-BU) in the USA; Sina Request Moghaddam (from BU-OzU) in Canada; Zahra Fath (from OzU-BU) in the Netherlands, and Zafer Artvin, (from METU-OzU) in Ankara, and Dilan Avşar (from BU-OzU) in Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. 

Kürşat Şendur, Ali Koşar ve M. Pinar Mengüç
EP2764763A4 NANOPLASMONIC DEVICE WITH NANOSCALE COOLING
Patented in EU, South Korea, Singapore and Japan

Ali Koşar, Kürşat Şendur ve M. Pinar Mengüç, EP3365627A1 FLOW SYSTEM FOR AVOIDING PARTICLE AGGLOMERATION Patented in USA, EU and Japan. It is a rare and prestigious triadic patent.