Dr. Meryem Ayşegül Kozak Çakır is a distinguished Turkish sociologist, higher education quality assurance expert, academic, and policy advisor with extensive international experience in higher education governance, quality assurance, institutional evaluation, comparative education, and social policy. She currently serves as Adviser to the President and International Relations Coordinator at the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council (THEQC/YÖKAK), while also holding an academic position at Bursa Uludağ University.
With an interdisciplinary educational background encompassing sociology, curriculum and instruction, comparative education, and history, Dr. Kozak Çakır has built a career that bridges academic research, public policy, and higher education quality assurance. Her academic training at the University of Minnesota and Indiana University Bloomington has provided her with expertise in comparative higher education, political sociology, democratization, gender studies, and quality assurance systems. During her doctoral studies, she was actively engaged in student governance and representation, serving in elected leadership roles that strengthened her commitment to participatory governance and stakeholder engagement. She later held senior governmental positions, including Advisor to the Minister and Head of Research and Development at the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, where she coordinated multi-stakeholder policy initiatives, oversaw national administrative processes, and engaged in high-level cooperation with European and international partners.
Building on this foundation, at THEQC Dr. Kozak Çakır plays a leading role in in advancing Türkiye's higher education quality assurance system and strengthening its engagement with the international quality assurance community. As Adviser to the President and International Relations Coordinator, she contributes to strategic policy development, institutional evaluation frameworks, and international quality assurance initiatives while leading cooperation with international organizations and quality assurance agencies. She has been instrumental in THEQC's successful ENQA and EQAR membership processes and has played a leading role in establishing the Council's International Institutional Accreditation Programme, contributing to the design of its policies, procedures, and implementation framework.
With over 15 years of combined experience spanning academia, governmental service, and international quality assurance policy, Dr. Kozak Çakır has coordinated cross-border quality assurance initiatives, led the development and delivery of national evaluator training programmes aligned with the ESG, and serves on several THEQC commissions responsible for the recognition, authorization, and monitoring of external evaluation and accreditation agencies. She has participated in numerous national institutional reviews and monitoring processes and has served as both panel member and panel chair in international external quality assurance reviews. Her work bridges national priorities with European and global developments in higher education, and she actively represents THEQC in international quality assurance networks while contributing to research and policy development on higher education governance, quality assurance, and internationalization.
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