Our University provided a range of support mechanisms in 2025 to strengthen the access of female students and prospective female students to higher education, academic life, career opportunities, and professional development. These included scholarships and financial support mechanisms, mentoring and career counselling, women-focused training programmes, entrepreneurship support, psychological and social support services, and initiatives aimed at reducing family and childcare-related responsibilities. These supports are not limited to a single activity but are implemented through various institutional units, including the Department of Student Affairs, Department of Health, Culture and Sports, Women and Family Studies Application and Research Centre (KAÇAUM), Career Centre, Technology Transfer Application and Research Centre, and Continuing Education Centre.
Evidence:
https://www.ktu.edu.tr/dosyalar/surdurulebilirlik_Ci50T.pdf
Our University’s Policy on Women’s Applications and Admission provides the institutional foundation for this approach. The policy explicitly identifies not only female students but also prospective female students as a target group and aims to expand women’s access to education, research, career opportunities, and social life. Among its core principles are the development of scholarship, counselling, and guidance mechanisms for women who are disadvantaged due to socioeconomic or other reasons, safeguarding accessibility rights for women with disabilities, and developing incentive mechanisms in areas where women are underrepresented.
The policy also clearly defines the institutional units responsible for implementing women’s access support. KAÇAUM is responsible for coordinating activities that strengthen women’s access to education, research, and career development, as well as developing mentoring, counselling, and access programmes across the University. The Department of Student Affairs is responsible for strengthening women students’ access throughout application, enrolment, scholarship, exchange programme, and graduation processes and for disseminating information on special support programmes available to female students. The Department of Health, Culture and Sports is responsible for developing healthcare, psychological counselling, and guidance services for women students, as well as programmes that increase their participation in social, cultural, and sporting activities.
The institutional approach has not remained limited to general principles. The implementation stages of the policy explicitly envisage the planning and campus-wide implementation of scholarships, mentoring, career counselling, incentives to increase women’s participation in STEM fields, and gender equality training. In addition, the number of female scholarship recipients has been defined as a performance indicator, and the annual monitoring and reporting of this and other indicators have been formally established. Therefore, support for women’s access is treated at our University not as an isolated activity, but as a measurable and monitorable institutional process.
One of the clearest examples of the implementation of this policy in 2025 was the Ä°ÅžKUR Job Club Training, organised on 10–11 December 2025 in cooperation between KAÇAUM and Ä°ÅžKUR. The programme was specifically designed for female KTÜ students in their third and fourth years. The training covered topics directly supporting female students’ transition to employment and access to career opportunities, including SMART goal setting, career planning through SWOT analysis, effective CV preparation, interview simulations, and the effective use of LinkedIn. The programme’s women-specific target group and content provide particularly strong evidence under the THE Impact indicator’s concept of “mentoring or other provisions.” KTÜ KAÇAUM’s 2025 institutional e-bulletin also documents that the programme was implemented and specifically targeted female students.
Evidence:
https://www.ktu.edu.tr/kadinarastirmalari/haber/iskur-is-kulubu-egitimi-basariyla-tamamlandi
https://ktu.edu.tr/dosyalar/kadinarastirmalari_mwjkL.pdf
Facilitating female students’ access to scholarship opportunities was also supported through concrete practices in 2025. For example, on 22 September 2025, the Department of Computer Engineering officially announced the Global Engineer Girls Türkiye Scholarship Programme to its female students. The programme targets female undergraduate students in the first, second, and third years of designated engineering programmes who require financial support. Although the scholarship itself is not funded directly by KTÜ, our University facilitated women students’ access to a national scholarship scheme specifically designed for them by promoting it through official academic channels.
Support is also provided to strengthen women’s participation particularly in technology and entrepreneurship. In April 2025, our University’s Technology Transfer Application and Research Centre announced applications for the Women in Innovation Thematic Acceleration Programme to female entrepreneurs and university technology teams composed of young women. The programme offered participants entrepreneurship training, mentoring support, one-to-one meetings with corporate companies and investors, and opportunities to develop professional networks. Female entrepreneurs working in food and biotechnology, as well as young women-led university teams developing projects in these fields, were eligible to apply. This initiative represents a concrete support mechanism designed to increase women’s access to STEM, innovation, and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Evidence:
https://www.ktu.edu.tr/tto/duyuru/inovasyonda-kadin-tematik-hizlandirma-programi-basvurulari-acildi
Our University also has a more institutional structure supporting the continuity of women’s entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneurship Cooperation Protocol between the KTÜ Young Women Entrepreneurs Club and the TOBB Trabzon Women Entrepreneurs Board, covering the period 2024–2029, remained in force in 2025. The protocol aims to increase the participation of women and young people in economic life and to strengthen their entrepreneurial competencies through training programmes, seminars, workshops, and joint project activities. The fact that this cooperation is established through a multi-year institutional protocol demonstrates that support for women’s entrepreneurship and career access is not limited to a one-off activity, but is embedded in an ongoing institutional partnership.
One of the concrete outcomes of this cooperation in 2025 was the ÜNÄ°DES Project, implemented in cooperation between the Young Women Entrepreneurs Club and the KTÜ Career Centre with the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports. During the programme held on 26–27 April 2025, students had the opportunity to receive field-based and practical training on sustainable agriculture, mushroom cultivation, production technologies, and entrepreneurship. The University explicitly stated that the programme contributed to enhancing students’ entrepreneurial vision. In this way, female students were supported not only through theoretical education, but also through access to professional networks and hands-on entrepreneurship experience.
