The Fund for the Support of Historical Research, created with the kind assistance of Dr. Alper Öktem in 2010 aimed at promoting and supporting research geared towards revealing scrupulous acts of conscience during the 1915 events, finding people who acted as a role model during that era and thus reflecting a facet of history that has not been adequately researched. The Fund was extended from 2013 on with the generous contribution of İbrahim Betil and its name has been updated to 'History and Memory Research Fund.' In addition to its initial scope, the fund also supports research on the traces of the events of 1915 and their memory on subsequent generations and the different ways of remembering.
In 2014, The Fund is supported also by Open Society Foundation, and five projects have been qualified to be funded by the evaluation of the jury.
The jury of the support fund consists of , Prof. Dr. Taner Akçam (Clark University), Prof. Boğos Levon Zekiyan (Venedik Ca' Foscari University), Prof. Edhem Eldem (Boğazici University), Prof. Raymond Kevorkian (Paris 8 University), Prof. Hans-Lukas Kieser (Zürich University), Prof. Arus Yumul (Bilgi University), Associate Prof. Ayşe Gül Altınay (Sabancı University) The awardees and their projects are:
- Melis Behlil - Carrying the Burden: Armenian Genocide and its Aftermath in Non- Fiction Film
- Özlem Galip - Remembering and Policies of Remembering: Armenian Genocide in Kurdish Novels
- Wendy Hamelink - Cultural Memories of Armenians from Sassoun
- Ümit Kurt - Rescuing Armenian Exiles in Birecik: Cemil Bahri Könne
- Neslihan Sarıhan - “Call me Longing”: In the Footsteps of Fatsa Armenians
MELİS BEHLİL: Dr. Behlil is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Chair of Radio, Television and Cinema Department at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, and a Research Affiliate at Stockholm University’s Institute of Turkish Studies. In addition to teaching and other academic duties, she writes film reviews for various publications, co-hosts a weekly radio show on Açık Radyo, and acts as the president of the Turkish Film Critics Association.
ÖZLEM GALİP: Dr. Özlem Galip is a lecturer and a researcher in the Oxford University.In 2013 she has completed her PhD on Kurdish Novels at the Centre for Kurdish Studies, University of Exeter/UK. In 2010 She co-authored a book entitled Kürt Romanı Okuma Kılavuzu (A Companion to Kurdish Novels) published by Sel Publishing House, Istanbul. In April 2015 her second book entitled Imagining Kurdistan: Identity, Culture and Society is published by I.B. Tauris.
WENDY HAMELINK: Dr. Hamelink defended her PhD in October 2014. Her thesis 'The Sung Home: Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation' is an analysis of the lives and works of Kurdish oral performers called as dengbejs. Their art and current performances show much about recent socio-political developments in the Kurdish region in Turkey. Currently, she works on the revision of her dissertation that will be published by Brill publishers. She also works on a new research project on the cultural memories of Armenians from the Sassoun region in eastern Turkey. Funded by the German Max Weber Foundation, she conducted field research in 2014 in Beirut, Istanbul and Paris, and is now working out the data.
ÜMİT KURT: He received his BA from METU Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences in 2006 and MA from Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in 2008. He worked as a fulltime academic in Gaziantep Zirve University. Between 2012 and 2014 he gave lectures at Sabancı University. His articles on Nationalism, Armenian Genocide, late Ottoman history, army and politics in Turkey, intellectual and political history of Turkey, and Turkey-EU relations have been published in journals.
NESLİHAN SARIHAN: She continued to her studies at the Department of Physics in Middle Eastern Technical University after her high school education. She graduated from the Department of Communication and Design, Faculty of Art, at Bilkent University. She continues her graduate studies on Media and Visual Studies at Bilkent University. She took documentary classes at Ankara University, Department of Communication. She shot short documentary films. Photography, visual anthropology, cinema, new media, documentary film are some of her interests. Production of her documentary film on Fatsa Armenians called Call me Longing is supported by Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Republic of Turkey. She is also studying on an oral history project at the same topic.