H. Selen Akçalı

H. Selen Akçalı is working under the Cultural Policy Studies Department at Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). Akçalı received her PhD in Contemporary Turkish History from Boğaziçi University, with a dissertation focusing on Turkey’s political propaganda activities during the Single-Party Era (1931–1946). 

Since 2004, she has been actively engaged in the development, management, and coordination of EU-funded projects across various sectors, including civil society, academia, and the private sector. As the founding partner of SOM Research (www.som.eu.com), she has led numerous international collaborations, offering expertise in programme development, multi-stakeholder coordination, and financial management, particularly within the framework of European Union funding mechanisms. Alongside her work in EU programmes, she has curated and managed a wide range of cultural projects—spanning from photography and contemporary dance to theatre and industrial design—in collaboration with prominent arts and culture institutions in Turkey and Europe since 2002. 

She currently teaches History of the Turkish Republic at Boğaziçi University and serves as the manager of the Ortaklaşa project (ortaklasa.iksv.org), run by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV).