The Fund for the Support of Historical Research, created with the kind assistance of Dr. Alper Öktem in 2010 has been renamed as ‘History and Memory Research Fund’ after enhancing the scope to include resarch on memory and the relationship between memory and history. Beside the research on 1915, with a particular focus on scrupulous acts of conscience which would today be considered as human rights defense the area of the Fund includes researches on the ongoing legacies of the human consequences of 1915, its trans-generational traces and the different modes of remembering.

The Fund which aimes to support academic researches on this topics has also received additional support from Harry Parsekian in 2017.

The 2021 Fund’s Jury consists of Hülya Adak (Sabancı University), Ayşe Gül Altınay (Sabancı University), Ayfer Bartu Candan (Boğaziçi University), Valentina Calzolari (Université de Genève), Deniz Kandiyoti (University of London), Raymond Kévorkian (Université Paris-VIII), Kerem Öktem (University of Venice) and Arus Yumul (İstanbul Bilgi University) decided to support the following four studies as a result of the ranking among the applicants:

- Ari Şekeryan "Saving the future: Armenian Orphans and Refugees after the Genocide (1918-1930)";

- Öndercan Muti ve  Cihan Erdal  "19 Ocak Kuşağı’nı Anlamak" (Understanding the Generation of January 19^th);

- Doğan Gürpınar, Özgür Kaymak ve Turkay Salim Nefes, "Perceptions of Armenians in Turkish Politics and Society"

- Kübra Kurt, "Bir Gözyaşının Ardından: Mezar Soyguncuları Ve Gözyaşı Şişeleri" (After a Tear: Grave Robbers And Tear Bottles).

Ari Şekeryan, graduated from the Department of Turkish Language and Literature of the Istanbul University in 2010. After getting his master’s degree from the History Department of Boğaziçi University in 2014, he completed his PhD at the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, California State University (Fresno), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), and University of Cambridge. He is currently working on his book about the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the armistice years.

Öndercan Muti, received his undergraduate degree from the Philosophy Department of Yeditepe University in 2009 and his master's degree from the Sociology Department of Mimar Sinan University in 2012. He completed his PhD at Institute for Social Sciences at the Humboldt University. He is currently teaching at the same university and working as a researcher at the ‘Population Europe’ program of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Studies.

Cihan Erdal is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University. He graduated from the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Erdal's ongoing doctoral research focuses on the experiences of young people who work for radical social change in Europe, particularly in the cities of Athens, Istanbul, Paris, and Berlin. In 2020, he was awarded with of Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fund  and is currently the coordinator of Center for Urban Youth Research (Canada).

Özgür Kaymak completed her Ph.D. degree at the Department of Public Administration and Political Science of Istanbul University with her dissertation titled “The Socio-Spatial Construction of Istanbul’s Rum, Jewish and Armenian Communities.” She has published books and articles on ethnic and religious minorities, identity construction of social groups, state-minority relations, women’s studies and gender. She is currently working on a project about ‘the Armenian Image in Modern Turkish Politics and Society’ and teaching “Gender and Society” and “Introduction to Family and Marriage Studies” courses at MEF University.

Turkay Salim Nefes, is a Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). He is also a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and Sociology Department of the University of Oxford. Previously, he was a William Golding Junior Research Fellow at the Brasenose College of the University of Oxford. His main research interest is the diffusion and impacts of ethno-religious hostility, particularly of conspiracy theories. He has published his work on conspiracy theories in academic journals including The British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Historical Sociology and The Sociological Review.

Kübra Kurt, started her sociology education in 2010 which she continued at the Department of Sociology at the University of Potsdam between 2013-2014 and received her undergraduate degree in 2016 from the Istanbul University Department of Sociology. She completed his master's degree in General Sociology and Methodology at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in 2019 with her thesis titled "Treasure Hunting as an Underground Economy: The Case of Van". Her areas of interest include immigration, identity and gender.

The supporters of the History and Memory Research Fund

Dr. Alper Öktem, born in 1954 in Dikili, is a retired radiologist and lives since 1978 in Germany. He is married and has two children. He is a member of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and a supporter of the Human Rights Foundation Turkey.

Harry Parsekian
Harry Parsekian was born in 1935 and has been a lifelong resident of Watertown, Massachusetts. He circumvented the world in 1984 and within years he traveled through lots of countries. In 1986 he climbed to the summit Mt. Ararat. In 1991 He volunteered for humanitarian aid flights to blockaded Armenia and in 2006 he bicycled from Armenia to Artshakh (Karabakh). He traveled troughout Armenia and Turkey and for the last few years has been involved in Turkish Armenian relations. He is a retired buisnessman and the president of Friends of Hrant Dink, Boston, MA.