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The European University Association regrets the passing of a new Turkish law on 1 July that consolidates the president of the country’s prerogative to appoint rectors of both public and foundation universities.
In 2018, a decree allowed the president of Türkiye to legislate through decrees. Subsequently in the same year, a further decree granted the president the power to appoint university rectors, while removing the university community from the process.
In 2024, the Turkish Constitutional Court nullified several provisions of the 2018 decree, including the legislation on the appointment of rectors, and gave public authorities one year to enact new legislation. At the time, EUA called on the authorities to reconsider the process and to more closely align it with European standards of university autonomy.
The new legislation reaffirms the sole competence of the country’s president to appoint rectors. While it stipulates that the Board of Trustees of foundation universities make a recommendation towards the appointment decision, in the case of public universities there are no provisions involving the university community.
This perpetuates a practice that is at odds with European standards regarding university autonomy, as evidenced by the most recent edition of EUA’s Autonomy Scorecard. While public authorities often officially appoint university leaders, they typically have a limited or no role in the actual selection process, which then rests with the university itself. The process established by the new Turkish law represents clear interference into university autonomy and goes against the Fundamental Values of the European Higher Education Area, which were endorsed by Türkiye at the 2024 Bologna Ministerial Conference in Tirana.
This development represents a lost opportunity to provide greater autonomy to Turkish higher education institutions and to include the university community in a key institutional governance process. As shown in the EUA’s recent report on ’Participation in institutional governance’, the country’s universities display limited inclusiveness in their governance. EUA reiterates its readiness to support the higher education system of Türkiye by offering its expertise in university governance models, based on its extensive work in this area.
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