University of Oxford Opens a Center at Bahçeşehir

The University of Oxford, one of the world's best educational institutions, is coming to Türkiye. SEESOX (South East European Studies at Oxford), a think tank affiliated with Oxford, will open a center at Bahçeşehir University to carry out Southeast European studies.

Scholarly meetings, research and conferences will be organized at the center to be established as a result of the cooperation between Bahçeşehir University and the University of Oxford. Platforms bringing together journalists, academics, politicians and non-governmental organizations will be created.

The relationship, which began with the participation of SEESOX Chair Kalypso Nicolaidis in the event "The Europe-Türkiye Project: Reflections on the Relationship in 2030" held at Bahçeşehir University, was instrumental in the birth of a new center in Istanbul.

Considering Türkiye's importance in the region, SEESOX-Istanbul is coming to Türkiye with the aim of becoming a center where interdisciplinary research on the entire region, centered on the Balkans and the Middle East, will be conducted and its outputs shared with the public. SEESOX-Istanbul will thus become a meeting place for leading experts from Türkiye, the United Kingdom and the European Union, as well as the neighboring region stretching from Belgrade to Beirut and from Athens to Cairo. The center's first activity will take place at Bahçeşehir University in September. Launching its work in Türkiye with an international conference titled "New Horizons in Turkish-Greek Connections in the Middle East and the Balkans," SEESOX-Istanbul will use the conference to discuss new opportunities and challenges in Turkish-Greek relations in light of the rapprochement process that has continued for a decade. Nora Fisher Onar of Bahçeşehir University will serve as Director of the SEESOX-Istanbul Center.

SEESOX-Istanbul will also organize every year, open to all undergraduate and graduate students at Bahçeşehir University, the "Bahçeşehir Studentship at Oxford" competition. The topic of the competition in its first year has been set as "New Horizons in Turkish-Greek Relations in the Middle East and the Balkans." The research proposals developed by candidate students will be evaluated by a joint Bahçeşehir-Oxford jury, and the student who wins the competition will spend 4 weeks at Oxford with all expenses covered. In addition, an Oxford faculty member will provide guidance to the Bahçeşehir University student in their research.