The Turkey-Armenia Fellowship Scheme was established by the Hrant Dink Foundation with the aim to promote cross-border affiliation and cooperation of professionals from the two neighbouring countries in areas where further exchange of expertise and lasting cooperation is much needed, such as academia, civil society, media, culture and arts, translation and interpreting/language-learning, law, etc.

In 2023-2024, within the framework of the “Support to Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process: Rapid Responses” programme, HDF offered five professionals the opportunity of conducting a short-term fellowship from two weeks to one month in the neighbouring country.

Cengiz Aktar, a Turkish scholar, professor of political science, conducted his fellowship programme at the Political Science and International Affairs Programme of the American University of Armenia.

Cengiz Aktar is a professor of Political Science presently hosted at the University of Athens EKPA-Turkmas. He was the Chair of European Studies at Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul. In addition to EU integration policies and refugee/migration issues, his research focuses on politics of memory regarding ethnic and religious minorities and on the history of political centralism.

In addition to delivering lectures at AUA, he also had a number of public events - an AUA in-house panel “Turkey 2023: conversation with Cengiz Aktar”; a public event at AUA on the topic “Towards the centennial of the Turkish Republic – Imperial Continuities and Ruptures” (the event was also broadcasted on YouTube); a public panel held at the French University in Armenia on the topic “Another Armeno-Turkish relation, structural impediments and perspectives”.

Mikayel Khachatryan, a public health law expert, carried out his fellowship at Koç University Department of Public Health, Istanbul.

He is the founder of Health Law Master Programme at Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan where he serves as the academic director. He was the head of the Department for International Cooperation of the Human Rights Defender’s Office (Ombudsman) of Armenia. He is an author to around 40 publications in international reviews (Armenia, Italy, Israel, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, United States), and co-author of three legal manuals.

In the framework of the Fellowship Scheme, Mikayel Khachatryan delivered presentations and lectures on health law and human rights issues for medical students at both bachelor’s and master’s levels, as well as to the alumni of the Global Health Master programme of Koç University. Along with that, the meetings with the academic circles and staff of the Department of Public Health paved a ground for exchange of experiences and identifying possible areas of cooperation.

Karolina Sahakyan, specialised in Turkish studies, did her fellowship programme at the Department of Comparative Literature at Koç University.

Karolina teaches Turkish at the International Scientific-Educational Center of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS RA) and diplomatic etiquette at Yerevan State University. Meanwhile she does her PhD studies at NAS RA. She also cooperates with Edge Publishing House translating literary works from Turkish into Armenian.

During her fellowship, Karolina Sahakyan audited courses in Contemporary Turkish Literature at Koç University, and Ottoman Paleography and Ottoman Turkish at Boğaziçi University. She focused on Ottoman historiography, particularly examining primary sources and historical texts related to the 19th century Ottoman Empire, uncovering new insights into its historical narratives. Her engagement in the Modern Turkish Literature course advanced her understanding of contemporary literary trends in Turkey, which will be useful for her literary translation endeavours. Above all, Karolina Sahakyan had an opportunity to expand her professional network by meeting various scholars and counterparts and setting a ground for future cooperation projects.

Tigran Amiryan, a cultural researcher, literary critic, curator, and semiologist, implemented his fellowship programme at Balat Surp Hıreşdagabed Armenian Church Foundation.

Tigran Amiryan is the founder and president of Cultural and Social Narratives Laboratory (CSN Lab). His primary focus lies in exploring how contemporary culture, artistic representation, history of self, and biographies contribute to the narrativization of individual and collective memory.

Within his fellowship, Tigran Amiryan studied the archive of the Surp Hıreşdagabed Armenian Church Foundation in Balat and the Khorenyan School and Orphanage that once operated under the foundation. The fellowship was a unique opportunity, as the newly established archive was researched for the first time. It helped Tigran Amiryan to expand the research on the Armenian community of Balat that he started in 2023. He also carried out oral history interviews and fieldwork, revealing memories of the Armenian community in Balat. After the fellowship, Tigran Amiryan had two presentations in Yerevan, where he presented the key research findings to an audience of students, academic researchers, and civil society representatives. In addition, a substantial study on the Khorenyan School, based on the archival research, is being prepared for publication by CSN Lab, revealing the centuries-old history of the school, its significance in the context of the cultural heritage of Istanbul, as well as its important role as a cultural and educational hub for the Armenian community.

Yaşar Adnan Adanalı, an Istanbul-based urbanist, activist, and social entrepreneur, carried out his fellowship programme at the Cultural and Social Narratives Laboratory (CSN Lab).

Yaşar Adnan Adanalı is the founding director of Postane, an Istanbul-based cultural center for social change. He is also the co-founder of the Center for Spatial Justice, an organisation advocating democratic, ecological, and just urban and rural spaces. His op-eds and commentaries have been published in many international media outlets (Al Jazeera America, BBC, DW, Le Monde Diplomatique, Monocle, The Economist, The Guardian, The New York Times), and he has delivered lectures in a number of international universities as a visiting lecturer.

As part of his fellowship, Yaşar Adnan Adanalı had a presentation and discussion on "Memory, Heritage, Justice: Practices and Places for a Better World", where he shared his extensive experience and expertise on spatial justice, documenting memory, and preserving cultural heritage in Istanbul. As a social media influencer, Yaşar Adnan Adanalı writes about spatial justice, places of memory, and cultural heritage through his channels under the nickname “The Urbanist”. During his stay in Yerevan, he produced a number of short videos presenting Yerevan and its modern urban developments.