How Should The Relationship Between Civil Society And Academy Be?

Doctor Sarphan Uzunoğlu from Kadir Has University, Associate Professor Erkan Saka from Bilgi University and Doctor Tirşe Erbaysal Filibeli from Bahçeşehir University evaluated the relationship between universities and non-governmental organizations for Civil Pages.

Sarphan Uzunoğlu: “Civil Society Has Contributed to the Endurance of Academic Freedom” 

There has been a transitive relationship between universities and NGOs for many years. In particular, the initiatives taken by national and international NGOs are of great importance in supporting social science researches in Turkey and in making social science education more qualified. NGOs’ projects sometimes compensate for the lack of human resources and content among the academy or the lack of information to be transferred to students and sometimes create alternative sources for research budgets that are transferred to natural sciences or monopolized by government institutions. Thus, they support independent or critical researches against the neo-liberalized academic system among the world and against the control of authoritarian institutions on science. It may be possible to criticize its impact on politics or say that the civil society lacks in those issues, but in Turkey civil society has contributed significantly to increasing the quality of education and research and to endurance of academic freedoms.

Erkan Saka: “Collaboration Is Getting More Difficult At Politically Risky Areas”

Turkey has a very dynamic civil society life. This dynamism does not mean that there have been no problems at all of course, but there are many good examples and the situation is likely to get better. Political developments in the country have also demoralized civil society activists and shook their self-confidence. The development of civil society has paused a little in this regard, but as I mentioned at the beginning, I believe that this pause will be overcome with the existing dynamism and fund of experience.

The academy and civil society have different working principles, but they still have many opportunities for collaboration. It may even be thought that the academy and civil society are relatively close to each other compared to other fields of study. Political situations have stopped this rapprochement relatively for now. Collaboration has become difficult, especially at politically risky areas. Nevertheless, academic studies in some areas may offer solutions that facilitate the work of non-governmental organizations that experience time problems.

Filibeli: We Cannot Say That There is a Functional Relationship Between The Academy And NGOs.”

There is mostly a project-based relationship between NGOs and the academy in Turkey. In those relevant projects, academics usually take place on the advisory boards of the institutions and / or are invited to some events for educational purposes. Since the projects are mostly activity based, no contact is made until the next event after the activities are over. Advisory boards remain idle because they do not hold frequent meetings. For this reason, it is not possible to say that there is a functional relationship between them especially in terms of long term outcomes. It is extremely important to establish a relationship in which NGOs and academics write joint projects, where everyone’s roles are determined during the project’s execution, and where all partners fulfill their duties as well as to carry out studies in which more qualified outputs are obtained in the long term.