History

 

It is known that women academics who have been working in various faculties of our university for many years have made significant contributions to the knowledge on gender equality as well as their research and publications in their own fields. One of the recent examples of such studies is the UNICAFE (Survey of the University Career of Female Scientists at Life Sciences versus Technical Universities) project supported by the European Union 6th Framework Program, and the other is the "Towards Gender Equality in Employment: Policies for Reconciling Work and Family Life". Istanbul Technical University is one of the 7 universities from 6 countries (Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Turkey) that participated in the UNICAFE project, which was carried out between 2006 and 2008 to determine the situation of women academics in the fields of engineering and medicine. The ITU group hosted the UNICAFE final meeting on November 12-13, 2008 and organized a meeting of European women rectors before the conference. These activities led to the idea of establishing a center within ITU in order to make the best use of the potential in the field of gender, and the establishment of our center was realized with the decision of the Executive Board of Higher Education dated 04.11.2009 and numbered 5510.
 
BMT-KAUM aims to conduct research and studies to ensure equal opportunities for women and men in science, engineering, technology and arts, to increase social awareness on this issue, to monitor relevant practices, to develop databases and indicators, to increase the visibility of the field of women's studies and women's contribution to social/academic life, and to provide continuous and up-to-date publications/documents that will enable the creation of an information center on the subject at the university. The establishment of the center is also important in terms of making comprehensive arrangements that have yet to adopt gender sensitivity in the undergraduate/graduate programs implemented at our university, where the presence of female students and academics is gradually increasing. Therefore, the activities of the center aim to provide academic support to complement and enrich the programs and researches implemented in the departments from a gender perspective.
 
The Center operated in ITU Taşkışla building (No: 134) until March 8, 2013, and since then it has been operating in the Faculty of Mining (E322) at Maslak Campus.
 
The founding members of BMT-KAUM are Prof. Dr. Ahsen Özsoy, Prof. Dr. Gülsün Sağlamer (Board Member), Assoc. Dr. İpek İlkkaracan Ajas (Board Member), Assoc. Dr. Kadriye Bakırcı, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehtap Hisarcıklılar, Prof. Dr. Mine Göğüş Tan (Board Member), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nilgün Okay (Assistant Director), Prof. Dr. Nuran Zeren Gülersoy, Prof. Dr. Seyhan Uygur Onbaşıoğlu (Board Member), and Ar. Assist. Özge Atalay Çelik.

Prof. Dr. Gülsün Sağlamer (2009-2013)

Prof. Dr. Fatma Arslan (2013-2017)

Prof. Dr. Yeşim Gürsel (2017-2018)

Prof. Dr. Leman Figen Gül (2018-2020)
Prof. Dr. Hatice Ayataç (2022-...)