Prof. Ayhan KAYA
Founding Director
Ayhan Kaya is the Founding Director of the European Institute. He is a Professor of Politics and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics of Interculturalism at the Department of International Relations, İstanbul Bilgi University; a member of the British Academy, and a member of the Science Academy, Türkiye.
He was the Principal Investigator of a 5-year-long European Research Council Advanced Grant project on youth radicalisation in Europe (ERC AdG, 2019-2024, No. 785934). He received his PhD and MA degrees at the University of Warwick, England. Kaya was a guest Professor at Humboldt University Berlin in 2024-2025 academic year. Kaya was previously a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Florence, Italy, and an adjunct lecturer at the New York University, Florence between 2016 and 2017. He previously worked and taught at the European University Viadrina as Aziz Nesin Chair in 2013 and 2024 and at Malmö University, Sweden, as the Willy Brandt Chair in 2011.
His research has focused on European identities, Turkish and Moroccan-origin migrants in Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, the 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 manuscripts are Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Between Reception and Integration (Switzerland: Springer IMISCOE, 2023, co-authored with Z. Şahin-Mencütek, E. Gökalp-Aras, and S. B. Rottmann), and Populism and Heritage in Europe: Lost in Diversity and Unity (London: Routledge, 2019). His recent edited volumes are Nativist and Islamist Radicalism: Anger and Anxiety (London: Routledge, 2023, with Aysenur Benevento and Metin Koca); 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); Contemporary Migrations in Turkey: Integration or Return (Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2015, in Turkish, co-edited with Murat Erdoğan), Belgian-Turks, Brussels: King Baudouin Foundation, 2008, co-written with Ferhat Kentel), Euro-Turks: A Bridge or a Breach between Turkey and the EU (Brussels: CEPS Publications, 2005, co-written with Ferhat Kentel, Turkish version by Bilgi University); wrote another book titled Sicher in Kreuzberg: Constructing Diasporas, published in two languages, English (Bielefeld: Transkript verlag, 2001) and Turkish (Istanbul: Büke Yayınları, 2000). He also translated Ethnic Groups and Boundaries by Fredrik Barth and Citizenship and Social Classes by T. H. Marshall and Tom Bottomore into Turkish. He also edited several books on migration, integration, citizenship, and diasporas. Kaya’s publications have been translated into several languages such as French, German, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, Dutch, and Russian. Kaya was actively involved in two FP7 and several Horizon 2020 projects. He continues participating in Horizon Europe research projects on migration, ressentiment, and heritage.
Kaya received the Turkish Social Science Association Prize in 2003; the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA-GEBİP) Prize in 2005; Sedat Simavi Research Prize in 2005; Euroactiv-Turkey European Prize in 2008, the Prize for the best Text Book given by TÜBA; and also the Prize for excellence in teaching at the Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University in 2013 and 2017.
E-mail: ayhan.kaya@bilgi.edu.tr
Dr. Özge Onursal-BEŞGÜL
Director
Özge Onursal-Beşgül is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations and Director of the European Institute at Istanbul Bilgi University. She graduated from the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University and holds an MA in International Relations from Istanbul Bilgi University, an MSc in European Politics and Governance from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in European Politics and International Relations from Marmara University. Since June 2016, she has been coordinating the MA in European Studies programme and the BILGI/Viadrina MA in European Studies double degree programme at Istanbul Bilgi University. From February 2019 to September 2024, she served as Deputy Director of the European Institute and took over the role of Director in September 2024.
Her research focuses on international organisations, European integration, EU education policy, the social construction of Europe, identity politics and citizenship. She has published extensively on Europeanisation, education policy and the Bologna Process, with a particular focus on Turkey's integration into the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and its interactions with European norms. Together with Dr Mehmet Ali Tuğtan, Özge Onursal-Beşgül is coordinating the Jean Monnet module FlipEU, which launched Istanbul Bilgi University's first MOOC on the EU in 2019. The FlipEU project, funded by the European Commission, ran from 2016 to 2019 and developed innovative flipped classroom methods for teaching EU-related subjects. She was also been awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in 2022 with the BILGINormsEU project, which focuses on European norms and their impact in Turkey.
Onursal-Beşgül is currently working as a Jean Monnet Network Researcher (2024-2027) within the Jean Monnet Policy Debate (ValEUs) project, an ERASMUS+ funded collaborative project focusing on values. Together with her colleagues, A. Kaya, S. Aydın-Düzgit and Y. Gürsoy, she received the TÜBA University Textbooks Award from the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) in 2012 for co-editing Avrupa Birliği'ne Giriş: Tarih, Kurumlar ve Politikalar. This EU textbook, published by Istanbul Bilgi University Press in 2011, is widely used in Turkey, and an expanded fourth edition was published in 2020.
As a lecturer, she teaches a range of courses in European Studies and International Relations, including History of European Integration (EU 212), International Organisations and Norms (IR 324), Introduction to the EU (GE 112), Contemporary Topics in European Studies (EUR 560) and Selected Topics in EU-Turkey Relations (EUR 505).
E-mail: ozge.onursal@bilgi.edu.tr
Dr. Ozan KUYUMCUOĞLU
Vice Director
Ozan Kuyumcuoğlu has been working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University since February 2020. He completed his Ph.D. at Yıldız Technical University Atatürk's Principles and History of Turkish Revolution Program in March 2018 with his dissertation titled "The View of Political Elite on Syria in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Period." He teaches Introduction to International Relations, World Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, Turkey and the Middle East, and Turkish Politics at Istanbul Bilgi University's Department of International Relations. In his research, Kuyumcuoğlu focuses on the reflection of the system of ideas and values shared by political elites in Turkish foreign policy. Since February 2023, he has been working on the project entitled "Red Sea Geopolitics" in collaboration with the Departments of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University and Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg, analyzing Türkiye's humanitarian and infrastructure activities in the Horn of Africa.
Didem BALATLIOĞULLARI, MA
Institute Projects Executive
Didem Balatlıoğulları is a Projects Executive at the European Institute of İstanbul Bilgi University. She graduated from İstanbul Bilgi University with a BA degree in Management of Performing Arts and received her MA degree from BİLGİ’s Cultural Management program. Her research areas are cultural policies, cultural diplomacy, and minority studies.
Dr. Deniz Güneş YARDIMCI
DAAD Research Fellow & Lecturer
Deniz Güneş Yardımcı is a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) lecturer at the European Institute. She is a sociologist, media- and film scholar specialized in Turkish-German relations with a focus on Turkish-German migration history, cultural identity, and the cinematic representation of migration and diasporas. Yardımcı has a PhD in Media Arts/Film Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London. She further holds a BA and MA in Sociology and a BA and MA (with distinction) in Media and Communication Studies/Film Studies from the Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, Germany. Currently she is working on her book about ‘Culture and Identity in Turkish-German Cinema’.
