New Perspectives: Turkey-UK Higher Education Strategic Partnerships Forum
February 27, 2019 / London
The British Council organized the ‘Turkey-UK Higher Education Strategic Partnerships Forum’ in London in partnership with the Council of Higher Education in order to share the new developments in higher education in Turkey and the United Kingdom, to discuss strategic priorities for cooperation, to identify areas for future collaboration and to develop new connections between UK and Turkish higher education institutions.
In addition to CoHE Deputy President Prof. Dr. Rahmi Er, Prof. Dr. Erkan İbiş, Rector of Ankara University, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Atalar, Rector of Bilkent University, Prof. Dr. Mehmed Özkan, Rector of Boğaziçi University, Prof. Dr. Muhammed Hasan Aslan, Rector of Gebze Technical University, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Çalış, Rector of Erciyes University, Prof. Dr. Haluk Özen, Rector of Hacettepe University, Prof. Dr. Mahmut Ak, Rector of Istanbul University, Prof. Dr. Nuri Aydın, Rector of Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Karaca, Rector of Istanbul Technical University, Prof. Dr. Umran S. İnan, Rector of Koç University, Prof. Dr. Mustafa Verşan Kök, Rector of Middle East Technical University, Prof. Dr. Yusuf Leblebici, Rector of Sabancı University, Prof. Dr. Yusuf Leblebici, Rector of Sabancı University, and the academics in charge of the international relations of these universities attended the forum. The representatives of 57 universities from the UK, policy makers and leaders also attended the forum.
Baroness Alison Suttie, who has been a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2013, delivered an opening speech in which she presented the aims of the forum. She underlined that Turkey is an important partner for the UK and touched on the importance of relations in higher education between the two countries. She also said developing these relations would be in the interest of both countries.
In his opening speech, CoHE Deputy President Prof. Dr. Rahmi Er informed the audience of the Turkish Higher Education System and internationalization strategies and said that they, as CoHE, was ready to improve the relations in higher education, which is among the relations with the UK that had recently been on a rising trend, in every area, especially the national priority areas, and in every level.
He emphasized that they participated in the forum with the prominent Turkish universities and said that they expected that the forum would lead to more collaboration, more exchange of student and academic staff, more joint degree programs, and more joint scientific projects between the universities in Turkey and the UK.
Included in the 100-day action plan of the Presidency of Turkey, the forum is an event that has brought together the university leaders and policy makers of Turkish and UK universities for the first time in the UK. The representatives of the higher education institutions of both countries discussed the potential cooperation and carried out network studies in the sessions that took place throughout the day. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the British Council and the Council of Higher Education at the end of the forum to further develop the relations in higher education partnership. Prof. Dr. Rahmi Er and Sir Ciarán Devane signed the memorandum of understanding on behalf of the Council of Higher Education and the British Council respectively. They agreed on a number of decisions for cooperation within the scope of the memorandum of understanding.
Ümit Yalçın, Ambassador of Turkey to London, and Sir Dominick Chilcott, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ankara, addressed the participants on the Turkey-UK relations. They expressed their satisfaction on the event, which is a first of its kind and aims to further develop the current relations.
This forum was held at the Royal Society of Arts in London. Both parties agreed to have the follow-up forum in Turkey this year.