CCR Executive Board

Emre Gönen was born in Izmir in 1956. He has done his secondary studies at Saint-Joseph French College in Kadıköy, Istanbul, where he graduated from in 1976.

He attended the University of Strasbourg, France, where he obtained his Bachelor degree in Sociology, in 1981 and his MA in 1982. He entered Université Paris V René Descartes-Sorbonne for PhD studies in Social Anthropology but he did not finish his studies. After working in the Turkish private sector between 1985 and 1989, Mr. Gönen was with the Economic Development Foundation (IKV); an organization founded in 1965 which represents the Turkish private sector vis-à-vis the EU. He was with the organization until 2000 and held the position of Secretary General for seven years.

In 1992, he was one of the first Turkish researchers to be granted the newly implemented Jean Monnet scholarships, he went to Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, where he obtained a Post-Graduate degree in European Union Studies.

He joined BILGI back in 2000, where he has served for 12 years as the Director of a joint European Studies Master’s Program with Universiteit Leiden of Netherlands. After 2004, the master program has become a joint venture with the Viadrina European University in Germany.

He has been teaching various courses on European governance, European integration, political history, globalization, colonialism and environmental politics at the International Relations Department. Since the year 2011, Emre Gönen has been serving also as Rector’s Advisor for external affairs.

He is the author of numerous articles and five books on different aspects of the EU-Turkey relationship. He writes a weekly column in a daily published in English since 2014.