We believe in building sustainable relationships between people and institutions in Turkey and in the UK because these benefit both countries. Our work covers a vast range of areas from English language and education to science and the arts, and from work with civil society to government reform.
British Council, as the cultural agent of the UK, plays a key role to provide a platform for a greater interchange between respective cultural traditions and contemporary experience.
Intercultural dialogue is one of the key pillars of the new British Council strategy across the wider Europe, and Turkey is the major gateway to the sharing of values within civil societies across Europe.
As a consequence of this initiative we run a number of projects outlined below:
In advance of 2008 European year of Intercultural Dialogue, British Council is pleased to be part of a major pan-European initiative by being involved in world class performance of The Beautiful Names in Turkey by the BBC’s flagship Symphony Orchestra & Chorus immediately following the London world premiere.
Find out the details
Collaboration on any shared enterprise fosters understanding, trust and respect. This is especially true of cross-border collaboration on creative productions. Creative Collaboration in Europe is a British Council Arts project that aims to support creative practitioners across the South East Europe to work together, promote diversity and identity as a basis for dialogue to encourage networking and development of the creative industries. The project will support information exchange and opportunities for skills development that can help make a significant difference to the potential of young people in Europe, EU accession and neighbourhood states
Contact: Louise Wright
Europe is changing, and with it the nature, reach and modes of its civil society. The Network Effect project, initiated by the British Council aims to develop a distributed network of future leaders in Europe. Prior to Turkey, the project was held in Stockholm concentrating on Media and Democracy, in Amsterdam on Social Diversity and Cities and in Bratislava on Civil Society.
The Istanbul event was the first in South East Europe, and recognised the need to engage future leaders in the latest EU accession states and neighbourhood countries in debates about issues which affect the wider Europe.
The theme for Istanbul was Business and Social Development. With this, The Network Effect project was very timely moved into a new area for debate.
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It was a meeting of hearts and minds when 40 young leaders from Europe and beyond (including 10 Turkish participants) met up in Istanbul to discuss the role of business in social development. The event was the fourth leg of The Network Effect series, a British Council project aimed at developing and nurturing relationships between the leaders of tomorrow in Europe. Participants, representing 32 countries, coming from a variety of backgrounds ranging from politics to business and NGO’s, all had one thing in common: they are making a name for themselves in their chosen field and are tipped to be the next generation leaders of Europe. The event, titled ‘Business and Social Development: How the Two Connect?’ saw participants debate around questions such as whether profit-making could be reconciled with the notion of ‘public good’, and the role of governments in providing frameworks and regulation for business. The participants carried out real life case studies by visiting the offices of Kagider, Tüpraş, Eczacıbaşı’s Istanbul Modern, Gray Advertising Agency and Hey Textile to investigate the relationship between business and social development in Turkey. The debate saw contributions from Deputy General Manager of Vodafone Turkey, Eric Bourland, and famous social entrepreneur Leendert Bikker, who served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange before setting up own consultancy firm and airline company. |
The media play a key role as an influencer of public opinion. The research on Turkish media has proved that there are issues around the coverage of disadvantaged groups such as women, ethnic groups and migrants at media. The Media and Diversity project, run in partnership with Turkish Press Council, aims to share knowledge, raise awareness and stimulate fair, accurate, balanced and objective practices among media professionals in the UK and Turkey on the issues of reporting diversity in line with EU values.
Find out more about the project
Contact: Esra Çanakçı
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