Interdisciplinary Regional Studies Conference

About BAU IRSC

The BAU Interdisciplinary Regional Studies Conference (BAU IRSC) is an international academic conference organised annually by the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Bahçeşehir University. Each year the conference focuses on a different region. Its aim is to examine that region from an integrated perspective that draws on disciplines such as political science, international relations, sociology, economics, business and logistics.

Understanding a region requires attention not only to its geographical location but also to the economic relations, social dynamics, institutional structures and cultural interactions that shape it. Trade and energy links, population movements and the exchange of ideas continually reshape the relations that regions sustain, both internally and with the wider world. Social reality of such complexity cannot be fully grasped through the concepts and methods of any single discipline.

Regional studies is a field nourished by the relationship between in-depth, region-specific knowledge and the theoretical and methodological tools developed within the disciplines. BAU IRSC seeks to bring these two bodies of knowledge onto common ground. It aims to make room for research that connects the particularities of a region to broader questions.

Our Approach

A new region every year. Each year our conference turns its attention to a different region. This allows for in-depth discussion of a particular geography while gradually building a comparative body of knowledge across regions. The questions and concepts debated at each conference also inform the agenda of those that follow.

An interdisciplinary programme. Sessions are designed to bring together researchers who approach a shared question with different concepts and methods. Perspectives from different disciplines therefore do more than sit side by side in the same programme. They become part of a discussion in which each tests and complements the others.

A rigorous and inclusive setting. BAU IRSC brings established scholars, early-career researchers and doctoral students together with participants who have field and practical experience of the region. The conference values a culture of debate that upholds scholarly rigour while remaining open to diverse views and constructive in spirit.

We aim to make BAU IRSC an international academic platform where researchers interested in regional studies meet each year and where knowledge deepens from one conference to the next. Our fundamental goal is for this meeting ground, established in Istanbul, to grow over time into a lasting network of research and collaboration that connects scholars from different parts of the world.