Erol Özvar is a professor of economics and economic history. He was born in Istanbul in 1966. He completed his undergraduate degree in the Department of Economics at Marmara University in 1989. He completed his master's and doctorate degrees in economic history at the same university. His scholarly works generally address the changes in economic and financial institutions specific to the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire in particular. Among Erol Özvar's works published in Turkish and foreign languages, his book "The Application of Malikane in Ottoman Finance" (Istanbul: Kitabevi Publications 2004) received the best book award in 2005 from the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, a division of Garanti Bank. Later, he co-edited Ottoman budgets with Mehmet Genç. This work, published in two volumes under the title "Ottoman Finance: Institutions and Budgets (Istanbul: Garanti Bank Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center, 2006), won the International Halil İnalcık History Award in 2013. Between 2009 and 2012, he worked as a visiting scholar at the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard University and in the Program for Islamic Law Studies at Harvard Law School, where he received research support. He served on the Scientific Board of the Turkish Historical Society and is a member of the Executive Board of the International Association for the Social and Economic History of Türkiye. He is a member of the Scientific Board of the International Association for Economic History (Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini, Italy). Erol Özvar, a faculty member at the Faculty of Economics, is married and has three children. He was elected as the President of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) for the second time by Presidential Decree No. 32973 dated August 1, 2025.