Izmir Katip Celebi University (IKCU) has a short but proud history of being a hub of research and education in Turkey, particularly in the Aegean Region since its foundation in 2010. IKCU benefits largely from its geographical position as being located in the city of Izmir and being at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, Africa and Middle East. Izmir is called as the pearl of the Aegean with its mild Mediterranean climate, multi-cultural social life and strong economy. Izmir is the city of university students, artists, scientists and business people. Izmir Katip Celebi University (IKCU) is established in accordance with the law No. 6005 issued on 21 July 2010. Located at Aegean Sea in Turkey, IKCU is a state university providing tertiary education with its 18100 students, 1200 academic staff and 600 administrative staff as of 2022. According to the records received by student’s office, IKCU has around 600 international students from 80 different countries. IKCU has 14 faculties involving the fields Dentistry, Pharmacy, Medicine, Health Sciences, Fisheries, Forestry, Tourism, Humanities and Social Sciences, Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Economics and Administrative Sciences, Engineering and Architecture, Islamic Sciences). Apart from faculties, IKCU has 27 strong research infrastructure in the fields of health, social sciences, and engineering.
Internationalization is the main policy of IKCU, in order to take the university one step further to an intellectual, educational, cultural level. Even though it is a brand new university which was established in 2010, it aims to enhance the number of mobilities and forge closer ties with other higher education institutions. IKCU has managed many EU funded projects from different categories (higher education, youth, vocational, adult education) since 2013. As gaining new skills and lifelong learning strategies have gained momentum to increase competitiveness. IKCU has been participating in EU Lifelong-Learning Programme since 2013. Within the framework of this period, it aims to increase the number of international mutual cooperation which give both students and staff an opportunity to take part in international education. Due to this reason, the efforts to increase this number have been going on day by day.