FlipEU // BILGINormsEU Jean Monnet Module and Chair

Dr. Özge Onursal-Beşgül / Chair Coordinator

Istanbul Bilgi University / Vice Director of European Institute

Özge Onursal-Beşgül is a faculty member of the International Relations Department at Istanbul Bilgi University. She has been in the university for more than 20 years, served in many administrative positions. She was actively involved in the establishment of European Studies in the university from its onset. Her expertise is norms construction and diffusion and the role of international organizations in global governance. Among several courses on international relations, she has been teaching an introductory undergraduate course on European integration since 2007.

Prof. Ayhan Kaya / senior expert

Istanbul Bilgi University / Director of European Institute, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics of Interculturalism

Ayhan Kaya is Professor of Politics and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics of Interculturalism at the Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University; Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence; and a member of the Science Academy, Turkey. He is currently a European Research Council Advanced Grant holder (ERC AdG, 2019-2024). He received his PhD and MA degrees at the University of Warwick, England. Kaya was previously a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Florence, Italy, and adjunct lecturer at the New York University, Florence in 2016-2017. He previously worked and taught at the European University Viadrina as Aziz Nesin Chair in 2013, and at Malmö University, Sweden as the Willy Brandt Chair in 2011. He is specialised in European identities, Euro-Turks in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Circassian diaspora in Turkey, the construction and articulation of modern transnational identities, refugee studies in Turkey, conventional and non-conventional forms of political participation in Turkey, and the rise of populist movements in the EU. His recent manuscript is Populism and Heritage in Europe. Lost in Diversity and Unity (London: Routledge, 2019). His recent edited volume is Memory in European Populism (London: Routledge, 2019, with Chiara de Cesari). Some of his books are Turkish Origin Migrants and their Descendants: Hyphenated Identities in Transnational Space (Palgrave, 2018), Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey (London: Palgrave, 2013); Islam, Migration and Integration: The Age of Securitization (London: Palgrave, 2012). For his CV, See Principal Investigator | Istanbul Bilgi University PRIME Youth Website

Prof. Ayşe Uyduranoğlu / senior expert

Istanbul Bilgi University / Director of Center for Environment, Energy and Sustainability Studies

Professor Ayşe Uyduranoğlu has been working in the Department of Economics at Bilgi University since 2000. She is the director of the Research Centre for the Environment, Energy and Sustainability Studies.

She received her Ph.D. degree from Exeter University under the supervision of Prof. Gareth D. Myles in 2000. Her interest areas are carbon pricing, green taxes, sustainable energy and transport policies, EU policies and regulation for environmental problems.

She has publications in leading international journals in her fields such as Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, Ecological Economics and Climate Policy. She has been the project manager of several projects funded by İstanbul Bilgi University and Tübitak. She is in the research team of one of the Research Development Innovation projects supported by Istanbul Bilgi University. She is the co-author of the report titled “Water Risks of Turkey”, which was published by WWF Turkey.

For her CV, see https://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/academic/staff/ayse-uyduranoglu/

Dr. Mehmet Ali Tuğtan / expert and advisor

Istanbul Bilgi University / Chair of Distance Learning Centre

Assistant Prof. Mehmet Ali Tuğtan has been a member of İstanbul Bilgi University Department of International Relations since 2008. Mehmet Ali Tuğtan has been the Chair of Bilgi Distance Education Centre (UZEM) since August 2017. Dr. Tugtan’s areas of study include Turkish-American Relations, Contemporary World Politics and Security Studies. In addition to several book chapters and articles on these subjects, Dr. Tugtan has edited a book on the Turkish involvement in the Korean War (Kore Savaşı: Uzak Savaşın Askerleri) published in 2013.

For Massive online open course projects of Dr Tugtan on his areas of study, see:

EdX Contemporary Issues in World Politics (With Prof. Ilter Turan)

https://www.edx.org/course/contemporary-issues-in-world-politics

FlipEU: A Flipped Course on EU (With Ast. Prof. Özge Onursal Beşgül)

https://flipeu.bilgi.edu.tr/.

For his CV see https://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/academic/staff/mehmet-ali-tugtan/

Dr. Büke Boşnak / expert

Istanbul Bilgi University / Department of International Relations

Büke Boşnak is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. She holds an MSc in European Politics and Governance from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her research focuses on civil society, Europeanisation, gender studies, environmental politics and human rights, and EU-Turkey relations.

For her CV see https://www.bilgi.edu.tr/en/academic/staff/buke-bosnak-aytac/

Veysi Kondu, MA /expert

Boğaziçi University / Istanbul Bilgi University

Veysi T. Kondu is a senior PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey, and an adjunct lecturer at Istanbul Bilgi University. He received his B.A. from the Department of Public Administration at Marmara University in Istanbul. His dissertation concerns the working and living conditions of seasonal migrant agricultural workers (SMAWs) in Adana, Turkey. It proposes a shift from socio-economic or cultural factors to political ones in the social scientific study of SMAWs.

His interest in SMAWs has grown out of his experience as the coordinator of the project “Improvement of the Living Conditions of Seasonal Migrant Agricultural Workers’ Children in Adana from the Perspective of Child Well-Being”. The project was executed by the Center for Migration Research at Istanbul Bilgi University. It was funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation. Çukurova Development Agency was the project’s official partner. (Please see Centre For Migration Research - İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi.) His responsibilities included spending a full month in the field to conduct the qualitative part of an extensive needs assessment research and making numerous visits to Adana to meet with the local officials or civil society members after the publication of the research report.

Kondu teaches extensively as an adjunct lecturer. He taught at the University of Ottawa (1999-2003) and Carleton University (2004-2006) in Ontario, Canada, and Boğaziçi University Summer Term (2008-2011) and has been teaching at Istanbul Bilgi University (2008-present) for over a decade now. The courses he teaches are in the fields of Comparative Politics and Turkish Politics (state-society relations, citizenship studies, state theory, democratic theory) and Political Theory (social and political theory of Jürgen Habermas, contemporary political theory, philosophy of social science). Also, Kondu is one of the three co-founders of “Goodness and Beauty”, a weekly online philosophy conversation series in English and Turkish with followers in Turkey and abroad.

Bahar Özay, MA/researcher

PhD student in Boğaziçi University

Bahar Özay is the coordinator of UN SDSN Turkey, is an accomplished and respected banking and corporate business executive with extensive experience in multinational banking and professional and governmental organizations. She is a member of the Sustainable Development Goals Committee of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, Zero Waste Committee of the Union of Municipalities of Turkey and İzmir Sustainable Urban Development Network. She conducts projects for WWF Turkey, Boğaziçi University Center for Climate Change and Policy Studies (iklimBU) and lectures on sustainability and UN SDGs at Boğaziçi University Lifelong Learning Center (BULLC) and iklimBU.

Most recently, Ms. Özay was director of GWG – Integrated Communications, business development, strategic planning and PR consultancy company. She conducted a close cooperation with various Ministries of the Republic of Turkey such as Energy, Environment and Urbanization, and Culture on projects targeting to develop carbon bank, to protect the environment and the cultural heritage.

Ms. Özay previously served as general coordinator of Arctrus Group, a leading business development consultancy firm for EU companies operating in various sectors such as energy, telecommunications, and food. She conducted investment operations in Turkey and the Middle East. She also coordinated Euragia Projects to develop a solar energy business in Turkey.

Currently, Ms. Özay conducts her PhD studies at Boğaziçi University, Political Science and International Relations Department on Turkish Climate Policies.

Suna Gökçe Kızılkaya, MA / researcher

PhD student in Istanbul Bilgi University

Suna Gökçe-Kızılkaya is a PhD student at Istanbul Bilgi University, Political Science Program. She is graduated from Istanbul University, International Relations Department. She has completed her first MA degree in Human Rights Law, Istanbul Bilgi University. She also has a MA degree in International Studies from Uppsala University. Her research interests include norm diffusion, human rights and international politics. Currently, she is working on her PhD thesis on the empowerment of Roma Groups in Turkey through human rights discourse. She has contributed many projects with an EU dimension and organized summers schools and conferences on this topic during her employment as an administrative assistant at Bilgi European Institute (2007-2010). She also worked as a project coordinator for two EU funded projects, “Eğitiliyorum, Öğreniyorum, Kayıtlı Çalışıyorum” (Promoting Registered Employment II Grant Scheme, EuropeAid/135020/M/ACT/TR), Trakya Development Agency, (2016 -2017) and “Improving European Dialogue for Business” (Grant Scheme for Turkey–EU Business Dialogue, TEBD EuropeAid/159785/ID/ACT/TR), Çerkezköy Chamber of Commerce and Business, (2019- 2020).