Oner Tulum is a research associate at the Centre for Industrial Competitiveness (CIC). He is also working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Innovation and Structural Change (CISC) of National University Ireland Galway (NUIG). Oner is a former graduate of Regional Economic and Social Development department (RESD) where he received his Master of Arts degree. During his studies at RESD he worked as a research assistant and economic researcher at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Upon his graduation, Oner Tulum was selected as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow for scientific research funded through the European Commission 7^th framework under the Marie Curie Action Fellowship Programme for Transfer of Knowledge (TOK) hosted by CISC at NUIG. The research project, Lucerna, aimed to identify developing high technology clusters as well as study the evolutionary process of those clusters in the Republic of Ireland.  Before that Oner worked as a market analyst in a leading security and investment firm in Turkey with the completion of his Bachelor of Science in economics at Anadolu University in Turkey. During his college years, Oner Tulum completed finance internships in the headquarters of the following firms: the leading investment firm, Iktisat Investment & Security; Kibar Holding one of the largest holding companies; and at the Turkish office of global home appliances giant, AB Electrolux. Oner Tulum is interested in studying industrial development and regional competitiveness of high technology sectors in particular, the Life Sciences and ICT sector groups. He aims to analyze the sectors by building primary or secondary datasets that may or may not be available publicly that would allow him to identify sub segments of those unique and complex sectors, and study their relationships within peer groups and regions.  His research also intends to explore the economic policies that have significant impact on regions’ industrial competitiveness as well as exploring the impacts of those policies on nations’ economic securities, development strategies and innovation systems.  In addition, he is interested in studying the economic effects of technological and innovative farming practices and policies geared toward productivity improvement in the agriculture industry.