New Partnerships: Highlights

Koç University has been engaging in discussions with the leading institutions from all around the world to explore potential areas of collaboration and several new partnership agreements have been signed for the mobility of students and academic staff members.

National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan) and KU has renewed their existing partnership agreement and also signed a university-wide collaboration agreement.

Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany) and KU has signed a student and faculty exchange agreement for ARHA department.

Ramon Llull University- ESADE Law School (Spain) and KU has signed a new agreement for student and faculty exchanges in the areas of Law, Economics and Political Sciences.

University of Alabama (USA) and KU has signed a MoU that would pave the way for student exchange and faculty collaborations in the near future.

International Delegations @KU

Representatives of international institutions as well as Ambassadors and Consul Generals of many countries have visited Koç University since the start of 2020. These visits are important in order to showcase KU’s strengths in research and education. These meetings also provide a ground for discussion on new types of collaboration between KU and the partnering institutions such as research collaboration, new program/project development, new mobility options for students and staff, etc.

Some of the international delegations that we have welcomed at KU include; Higher School of Economics (Russia), University of Bradford (UK), LUMS (Pakistan), University of Airlanga (Indonesia), Lund University (Sweden), Australian Ambassador and Consul General of Brazil.

News of Success from Koç University Faculty

Since the start of 2020, Koç University faculty members have been thriving in national and international research award programs and grant programs.

Our Faculty’s Success in Young Scientist Awards

Koç University has realized yet another outstanding achievement with the announcement of the 2020 Recipients of the Science Academy Young Scientist Awards Program (BAGEP).

Koç University is the recipient of 6 of the 40 Awards given out this year. This result once again underscores the outstanding standing of our academic faculty. Koç University has received the largest number of BAGEP Awards given in the last 7 years since the inception of this program. Awards were received in the areas of Medicine, Media and Visual Arts, Physics and Mechanical Engineering.

Outstanding Success of Koç University Medical School

We are proud to share that the proposal of Koç University Medical School for WIDESPREAD-04-2019: ERA Chairs titled “Koç University Transplant lmmunology Research Center of Excellence {TIREX)” has been accepted by the European Commission.

This highly prestigious grant is the first ERA Chair Grant awarded in Türkiye to Koç University with a budget of 2.5 million Euros. The Project Team will work towards establishing a leading Center of Research Excellence that is going to contribute to the European Research Area in the field of Transplant Immunology.

AXA Chair Awardee: Koç University Dean of Engineering

Koç University Dean of Engineering, Prof. Özgür B. Akan, has received the prestigious AXA Chair, given by AXA Research Fund, representing the first time such a Chair has been received in Türkiye. The AXA Chair holder is selected from those who have demonstrated outstanding research achievements and leadership qualities, and Prof. Akan received this award for his proposal titled “MI-FI: Micro/Nanoscale Transceivers for Wireless Molecular Information Communications”.

The AXA Research Fund was founded in 2007 as AXA’s scientific philanthropy initiative. The Fund is committed to supporting science, contributing to societal progress and encouraging researchers to share their work with the larger public. The AXA Research Fund supports projects in the areas of Health, Environment, New Tech and Socio-Economics. Prof. Özgür Barış Akan has received this chair on the basis of his outstanding contributions to science and his excellent proposal.

Travel before COVID-19

The Global Recruitment Team visited our partner high schools, educational agencies and universities in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Belgium and Germany between January and February 2020 before travel restrictions were put in place disrupting our planned events for March until June this year. We are glad we had the opportunity to still have these face-to-face encounters with talented students and excellent counsellors as we help them prepare their applications for admissions for the 2020-21 academic year.

EURIE 2020 Conference session with CollegeBoard

Global Recruitment Team members Ms. Melissa Abache and Mr. Efe Carlık delivered a workshop session with Mr. Russell Dover from College Board during the EURIE2020 summit (Eurasia Higher Education Summit 2020) on the topic of using digital marketing tools to help increase access to university for students in countries where it is difficult to visit and engage face-to-face.  We shared our practice and journey to date in using CRM systems, paid and organic social media, paid search, test databases and other tools that are available for university admission staff for a relatively affordable cost.

It is still a fairly new journey for many universities outside of traditional education destinations and the recent events worldwide have shown why more than ever it is important for universities to develop robust digital communications and engagement systems for their international recruitment activities. We thank all the participants who attended from partner universities and colleagues from Türkiye

Meet the Global Recruitment Team online!

Koç University’s Global Recruitment Team and faculty members will be delivering information session webinars between June-August 2020 for offer holders and prospective students. Do get in touch if you would like to schedule a call with our team to discuss collaboration opportunities (study@ku.edu.tr). To view the full calendar of webinars and our advice to candidates on admissions regarding test cancellations visit https://international.ku.edu.tr/