​​ 2023-2024 Academic Year Opening Ceremony Held at Presidential Complex

YÖK 2023 Excellence Awards Given to Winners

CoHE President Erol Özvar: "As the Council of Higher Education, our vision for the Century of Türkiye is to build an innovative and competitive higher education system that adopts a quality-oriented and academic performance-based management approach, supports university-industry cooperation models with its diversity and the manpower profile needed by our country, is sensitive to national, regional and global problems, and shapes the future at a universal level."

October 9, 2023

The 2023-2024 Higher Education Academic Year Opening Ceremony was held at the Presidential Complex with the presence of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye Numan Kurtulmuş, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, CoHE President Erol Özvar and state officials attended the opening ceremony. Ministers, CoHE members, heads of relevant institutions, ambassadors, university rectors, academics and students also attended the event.

After a moment of silence and the singing of the National Anthem, the Turkish Music Ensemble of Ankara Music and Fine Arts University performed a recital. An orchestra called "Bizim Orkestra", which consists of young people with autism and visually impaired, accompanied the recital. After the recital, a promotional film on Turkish higher education was presented.

Following the speeches of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and CoHE President Prof. Erol Özvar, “YÖK 2023 Excellence Awards”, which are given in four categories by CoHE every year, were given to the winners.

In his opening remarks at the ceremony, CoHE President Özvar said the academic community grieved for those who lost their lives in defense of the homeland and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded and added, "We wholeheartedly support the anti-terrorist operations carried out by our heroic security forces across our country and beyond our borders."

Özvar wished that the 2023-2024 academic year would be beneficial for students, academics, administrative staff and the nation and said, “As the Council of Higher Education, our vision for the Century of Türkiye is to build an innovative and competitive higher education system that adopts a quality-oriented and academic performance-based management approach, supports university-industry cooperation models with its diversity and the manpower profile needed by our country, is sensitive to national, regional and global problems, and shapes the future at a universal level."

"All kinds of support was given to the earthquake zone"

On February 6, 2023, Özvar said that the Kahramanmaraş-based earthquakes, which were called "the disaster of the century", deeply affected higher education, and that more than 700 thousand students, which constitute approximately 15 percent of higher education students, were affected by the earthquake.

Özvar touched on the efforts carried out to heal the wounds in the earthquake zone. He stated that the students affected by the earthquake were provided with opportunities such as suspension of studies, special student status, tuition fee exemption, and the allocation of an additional quota of 25 percent in addition the quotas of the universities in the region without any reduction from the general quotas. He added that these allocated quotas consisting of around 24 thousand students was all used.

"A striking example of the demand for higher education"

He talked about the developments in higher education:

"In recent years, the Turkish higher education system has made a striking development by responding to the expectation to access to higher education all around the world in a timely manner. The number of candidates applying to universities, which was around 3 million 243 thousand in 2022, increased by 9% to 3 million 527 thousand in 2023. The quotas that are over one million including open education programs reached a very high occupancy rate of 99.8% this year. This increase is a striking example of the demand for higher education and is similar to other countries on a global scale. The increasing demand for access to higher education in Türkiye has become possible thanks to the universities established in the past 21 years in line with the will of His Excellency."

"Türkiye will be one of the 10 countries with the highest number of international students"

Özvar pointed out that the increase in higher education capacity had enabled nearly 340 thousand international students from 198 countries to study at Turkish universities, and thanked everyone who contributed to this great increase and said, "I believe that international students' interest in Türkiye will continue to increase in the coming years. Türkiye will be one of the 10 countries with the highest number of international students."

-CoHE's Projects

He mentioned the projects carried out by the Council of Higher Education. He noted that 400 academics were offered the opportunity to carry out scientific studies at distinguished universities and research centers abroad with the Academic Knowledge Project, Postdoctoral Research Project and Young Minds in Basic Sciences Project.

Özvar also stated that with the amendment made in the Higher Education Law to improve university-industry cooperation, it became possible for national and international researchers to be employed part-time at Turkish state universities, and that CoHE signed cooperation protocols with many institutions.

-Overseas Projects

Özvar also touched on the activities carried out abroad and said, "The Council of Higher Education attaches importance to science diplomacy in line with the policies of the Republic of Türkiye to become an important actor in regional and global issues. As we take steps to improve relations and cooperation in the international arena, we closely coordinate our activities with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye."

He noted that CoHE was working hard to develop relations with higher education institutions of the member states of the Organization of Turkic States, and said:

"At the Meeting of the Ministers of Education of the Organization of Turkic States held in Samarkand in recent months, we made proposals to strengthen the Union of Turkic Universities and make it a brand in the academic world, to establish a Turkic World Higher Education Area, Turkic World Higher Education Data Bank, Turkic World Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency and Turkic World Higher Education Foundation. With the positive response of the General Secretariat of the Organization to our proposals, we are conducting a more detailed and conceptual study. We ask for your support to present these projects as Türkiye's proposals at the Summit of the Organization of Turkic States to be held in next November."

Özvar said that one of the primary goals was to further improve relations and cooperation with the European Higher Education Area and added, "We closely follow the issues related to higher education in the international organizations of which our country is a member and contribute to the development of conceptual works."

He stated that the President and Secretary General of the European University Association (EUA), one of the most important non-governmental organizations in Europe, would pay a visit to the Council of Higher Education on November 7, and that all aspects of how universities could be more effective in the field of European higher education would be discussed during the visit.

He touched on the works carried out with the higher education institutions of the Islamic world and said, "While strengthening close relations with the Turkic world and Europe in higher education, we are also taking steps to improve our cooperation with the higher education institutions of the Islamic world. We believe that contributing to the formation of a higher education area in the Islamic world is a good initiative for the whole Islamic world."

"We want to further advance the quality-oriented higher education approach"

He emphasized that Türkiye had already reached a great capacity in terms of the number of national and international students and graduates, and said, "From now on, I would like to express that we endeavor to further advance the quality-oriented higher education approach. In this regard, topics such as making our universities stand out in international competition, increasing the number of R&D-based projects and scientific publications of our academics with high impact value, and ensuring that our students graduate with the required equipment to meet the needs of the age will continue to be the priority agenda items we are working on."

He stated that universities that had received institutional accreditation through the efforts of the Higher Education Quality Board in the field of quality assurance had started to be included in the lists of international umbrella organizations and said, "In the coming period, we want to make our quality in higher education visible worldwide, especially in the TRNC and our cultural region. As the Council of Higher Education and universities, we are pleased to observe that our quality-oriented approach and efforts have started to bear fruit."

Özvar shared information about the rankings made by international rating agencies and the universities that succeeded in entering these rankings. "Perhaps the most striking development this year is that 18 Turkish universities that were established after 2006 are included in the rankings.

I would like to congratulate these universities. This achievement is a result of Your Excellency's trust in us and your strong support for higher education. In the future, we will not let your support go to waste and we will achieve even greater achievements together," he said.

"We believe that we need to accelerate artificial intelligence studies"

CoHE President Özvar also referred to the developments in artificial intelligence in his speech. He emphasized that the developments related to artificial intelligence were of interest to universities all over the world.

"Artificial intelligence has the potential to affect all areas of society with its unpredictable future and trillion-dollar economic volume. The world of artificial intelligence, which has the potential to create new professions and employment areas, to liquidate existing professions and help employment, is an issue that should already become a permanent agenda for all of us.

It would not be an overstatement to say that the world of artificial intelligence has the potential to transform universities as much as other institutions. The question of how artificial intelligence will affect universities is closely related to how this technology can be used and adapted in our institutions.

The Council of Higher Education has been working with our universities on the artificial world as a permanent agenda item for some time. In this context, we have opened undergraduate and graduate programs in artificial intelligence at many universities in the last two years."

Özvar emphasized that all these studies carried out by the Council of Higher Education required the institutional structure to be strengthened in all respects in the coming period and said, "Mr. President, taking into account the size of the higher education system in our country, its role in economic development, and our duties and responsibilities in increasing our human capital, I would like to convey to you that there is a need to review the institutional structure and capacity of the Council of Higher Education during the works for civil constitution."

-2023 Council of Higher Education Excellence Awards

After the speeches, the 2023 CoHE Excellence Awards were presented to the winners. Academics received their awards from President Erdoğan.

In the category “Individual Awards”, the Council of Higher Education awards doctoral students and their advisors together to draw attention to the importance of the relationship between academics and students.

Within the scope of the Individual Awards, research assistant Hüseyin Cem Esen and his thesis advisors Prof. Sevilay Çınar and Prof. Okan Murat Öztürk were awarded the "Doctoral Dissertation of the Year Award" in the Fine Arts and Architecture category, Dr. Hülya Kınık and her thesis advisor Assoc. Prof. Özgür Tüfekçi in the Social Sciences and Humanities category, Dr. Kemal Koca and his thesis advisor Prof. Mustafa Serdar Genç in the Science and Engineering Sciences category, and Cansel Vatansever and her thesis advisor Prof. Füsun Can in the Health and Sports Sciences category.

Within the scope of the Institutional Awards, Istanbul Technical University received the Digital Transformation and Big Data Studies Award and the Social Responsibility Award, Gazi University received the International Cooperation Award, Sabancı University received the University-Business World Cooperation Award, and Uşak University received the Contribution to Local Development Award.

Prof. İsmail Koyuncu, Rector of Istanbul Technical University, and Prof. Lütfiye Durak Ata, project coordinator, received the "Digital Transformation and Big Data Studies Award"; Prof. İsmail Koyuncu, Rector of Istanbul Technical University, and Prof. Ali Tüfekçi, project coordinator, received the "Social Responsibility Award"; Prof. Musa Yıldız, Rector of Gazi University, and Prof. Erden Banoğlu and Prof. Burcu Çalışkan, project coordinators, received the "International Collaboration Award"; Prof. Yusuf Leblebici, Rector of Sabancı University, and Prof. Erden Banoğlu and Prof. Burcu Çalışkan received the "University-Business World Collaboration Award" and Prof. Ekrem Savaş, Rector of Uşak University, and Prof. Yaşar Gök, project coordinator, received the “Contribution to Local Development Award”.

Within the scope of the Special Area Award, Dr. Özkan Doğanay was awarded in the National Innovation category. Doğanay received his award together with Ege University Rector Prof. Necdet Budak.

The Special Award was given to Prof. Salih Tuğ in the category of Service to Science and Students.

The ceremony ended with a group photo shoot.

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