Prof. Dr. Baki Aksu
Born in 1958 in the Mesudiye district of Ordu, Prof. Dr. Baki Aksu completed his primary and secondary education in Yeşilyurt and Yeşilce; He completed his high school education in Istanbul Maritime and Fisheries Vocational High School and his bachelor education in Anadolu University in 1988. After graduating from Istanbul University with a master’s degree on “Human Resources Management” in 1992, Aksu received his doctorate in “International Business Administration” at Istanbul University in 1997. He became "assistant professor" in February 2003, "assistant professor" in the field of "Management and Strategy" in March 2013 and "professor" in May 2018.
Aksu, who has given many courses in the field of Business Management, has been a manager at various levels for many years. Between 1989-2003, he worked as the director of the Istanbul University Faculty of Forestry, Forest Products Integrated Facilities, and between 2003-2004 he worked as the Deputy Director of Ordu University Mesudiye Vocational School and between 2004-2008 he worked as the Director of Mesudiye Vocational School. Since 2008, he has worked in Beykoz Logistics Vocational School as program and department head, assistant manager, secretary of school, deputy director. Since 2016, Prof. Dr. Baki Aksu has served as the Director of Beykoz Logistics Vocational School within the body of Beykoz University. Aksu, who left this position as of June 22, 2018, was appointed as the Vice Rector of Beykoz University on the same date.
Aksu, who has more than 50 scientific articles, has successfully worked as a coordinator, assistant coordinator and assistant researcher in 6 national and international projects.
Prof. Dr. Baki Aksu also served as the chairman of the board of directors and memberships of the non-governmental organizations. Board memberships in some institutions still continue.
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Kasım HAN
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Kasım Han is the Vice Rector of Beykoz University, and is also a faculty member in the Department of International Relations in English at the Faculty of Social Sciences. Prof. Han’s career encompasses leadership and strategic advisory roles in the private sector alongside his academic work. In addition to his role at our University, he serves as Vice President of the Board of Trustees at TED University in Ankara. Beyond his academic endeavors, Prof. Han contributes to ongoing discussions in the areas of economics, foreign policy, and energy geopolitics in Turkey and the Middle East and North Africa region through interviews and opinion pieces published and broadcast in various international and international media outlets. He is frequently consulted by prestigious publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Paris Match, Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun, BBC, VoA, NBC, Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera, and The Economist. In this context, in the span of three decades he has appeared in close to 1,000 interviews in domestic and international media.
Prof. Han has held high-level academic and administrative roles as Vice Rector, Dean, and advisor to the Rector and the Board of Trustees at Aydın, Altınbaş, and Kadir Has Universities, as well as serving as Department Chair. Previously, he directed the Research Center for Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University and served as a faculty member in the Faculty of Economics at Istanbul University. Prior to that he was also a faculty member in the MBA programs at Istanbul Bilgi University. Actively involved in civil society organizations, Prof. Han is Vice President and Chair of the Academic Research at the Turkish Democracy Foundation and a board member at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), one of Turkey’s leading independent think tanks. Additionally, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Kasım Han is the academic coordinator of the Political Leadership Excellence Program, a joint initiative of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and EDAM, providing strategic guidance and training to aspiring young leaders.
In the field of defense and strategic studies, Prof. Han served as an Adjunct Professor of Strategy at the Atatürk Institute for Strategic Studies of the Turkish National Defense University until 2020 and was an academic advisor at the Armed Forces Joint Operations Higher Command and Control Academy of the Staff College. He currently works as a Senior Research Fellow on the Middle East and North Africa at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) in Milan. He has contributed to the “On Turkey” series by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and participated in high-level diplomatic initiatives addressing various international crises and issues related to energy resources, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions. Furthermore, he has served and continues to serve on the advisory, review, and academic boards of several academic journals, like International Relations, the first Turkish journal indexed in the SSCI, published by the International Relations Council of Turkey, and Defence Against Terrorism Review published by the NATO Centre of Excellence for Defence Against Terrorism (COE-DAT) amongst others.
Prof. Han completed his undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and post-doctoral studies in economics, international relations, strategy, finance, and negotiation strategies at Istanbul, Boğaziçi, Koç, and Harvard Universities. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Center for Syrian Studies at the University of St. Andrews and at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. In 2003, he was recognized as one of the "Fifteen Young Leaders of Europe" by the U.S. Department of State and was awarded a scholarship for their prestigious foreign policy studies program. In 2015, he was awarded another scholarship by Tel Aviv University for studies on Israel and the Middle East. In 2024, he participated in the Strategic Planning for Political Parties program under the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s International Academy for Leadership.
Since the beginning of his career, Prof. Dr. Han has maintained a close collaboration with the private sector, blending academic research with practice. In this capacity, he frequently speaks at global conferences on international order and systemic change, great power rivalries, strategic studies and thought, Middle Eastern and Turkish politics, energy geopolitics, political economy, and political and economic risk management. Moreover, he has provided consultancy to various national and international commercial and industrial organizations in more than 10 sectors and has delivered speeches and lectures on global and regional political and economic dynamics in over 50 countries. Prof. Han is also a professional speaker, having conducted seminars, professional training, and consultancy services for companies and industries in strategic thinking, negotiation, strategic communication, and political and economic risk analysis.
As an opinion pundit, Prof. Han has produced and contributed to numerous programs on Turkish television and has authored articles as a columnist for newspapers such as Radikal, Referans, and Oksijen, as well as for online platforms such as Independent Türkçe and Gazete Pencere. Currently, he is a regular guest on Turkey’s major news channel NTV’s flagship show on politics “Political Affairs” and co-hosts “Nereden Nereye?” a show on history on Turkey’s first thematic history channel, TarihTV, alongside Prof. Dr. Burak Küntay. Additionally, he continues to write regular columns for Ekonomi Gazetesi and is a commentator on “Kes Tıraşı!” an online political and economic analysis program on the popular Turkish internet media on finance BlackSwan Finans. Prior to these, he served as an international relations advisor to the Turkish Exporters Assembly from 2003 to 2006 and as a member of the advisory board of the Turkish-American Business Council between 2020 to 2024.
In addition, in 2013, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Kasım Han addressed the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Dubrovnik on Eastern Mediterranean energy resources and served as an international observer for NATO in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2010. He has also participated, designed, and managed crisis management, counterterrorism, and strategic management programs for international organizations and governments, including NATO.
Prof. Dr. Ragıp Kutay KARACA
Prof. Dr. Ragıp Kutay Karaca, who has held many senior academic and administrative positions, has started to work as the Vice Rector of Beykoz University as of January 2025. Prof. Karaca, who is an expert in the discipline of International Relations and Political History, is the president of Diplomacy Research Association and Aviator Fenerbahce Association. Karaca is a member of the Middle East Institute, Middle East-Asia Project Group and an educational advisor to the Eurasian Strategic Research and Thinking Platform.
Karaca completed his second bachelor's degree in Public Administration at Anadolu University in 2000 and his master's degree in Strategy Sciences at Gebze Institute of Technology in 2003. He received his PhD degree from Gazi University, Institute of Social Sciences with his thesis titled “Republic of Turkey - People's Republic of China Relations in the Post-Cold War Period”. Karaca worked as a faculty member at the Institute of Strategic Studies at the National Defense University between 2010-2012 and received his associate professorship in the field of Political History of International Relations in 2012.
Between 2013-2017, he worked as an Associate Professor at Istanbul Gelisim University, Department of Political Science and International Relations, and served as Vice Dean and Director of the Institute of Social Sciences. In 2017-2018, he served as the Head of the Department of International Relations (English) and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Nişantaşı University.
In 2018, Karaca received his professorship in Political History and served as a faculty member of the Department of International Relations and Director of the Graduate Education Institute at Istanbul Aydın University between 2018-2024. As of January 2, 2025, he started to work at Beykoz University as Vice Rector and faculty member of the Department of Political Science and International Relations (English), Faculty of Social Sciences.
Karaca has a significant academic background in his field with numerous articles published at national and international level and makes valuable contributions to the literature. “China as the New Power in the World: From Unipole to Bipole” and ”Power Strategy China: Turkish-Chinese Relations after the Cold War”. He is also the author of “Diplomatic History I”, “Diplomatic History II”, “Diplomatic History I”, “Diplomatic History II”, “Sino-Turkey Relations: Concept, Policies, and Prospects”, ‘New Concepts and New Conflicts in Global Security Issues’ and ‘Security Issues and Reflections in Asia’. Karaca has written numerous book chapters in the field of international relations with a focus on the Middle East and Asia.
From the 2011-2012 academic year to the present day, he has taught History of Diplomacy at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels, Turkey's Political Structure: Transformation and Crises, Turkish Political Life and Political Institutions, International Energy Politics and Security, Security Strategies, Foreign Policy Analysis: The People's Republic of China, Security Perceptions in the Asia-Pacific, Chinese Power Strategy and Regional Politics.
Prof. Dr. Ragıp Kutay Karaca, who has participated in many television programs related to his field, continues to inform the public by sharing his views on international relations, diplomacy and strategic issues. In the programs, Karaca addresses topics such as Turkish foreign policy, developments in the Middle East, global power balances and regional cooperation, and offers a broad perspective to the audience by conveying his academic knowledge in an understandable way. Karaca, who continues to participate in television programs, draws attention with his analyses on current issues and contributes to the dissemination of strategic thinking in society.
In addition, Prof. Dr. Ragıp Kutay Karaca is a columnist who provides in-depth analysis on international politics, diplomacy and strategic relations. Karaca, who has been writing for Dünya Newspaper since 2022, displays an interdisciplinary approach by addressing the basic dynamics of the global system and the strategic moves of international actors in a historical and analytical framework.
Focusing on topics such as the Turkish world, the Middle East and regional integration processes, Karaca offers in-depth analyses to his readers by evaluating the effectiveness of international organizations, the balance of power and regional relations with academic rigor while interpreting the current political contexts of historical events in depth.
This content was updated on 20/01/2025.