SULEYMAN DEMIREL UNIVERSITY

Their core work

Suleyman Demirel University is a Turkish public university in Isparta with research capacity spread across multiple faculties. Their H2020 participation reflects two entirely separate academic units: a food science or agriculture faculty working on mycotoxin contamination management in food and feed supply chains, and a social sciences or law faculty researching international refugee governance and EU asylum policy. Both contributions are specialist in nature — they bring domain expertise to large consortia rather than driving the research agenda. As a Turkish institution in an H2020 associated country, SDU represents a bridge between EU research networks and Turkish academic expertise in both applied agricultural sciences and migration governance.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

SDU's H2020 timeline does not represent a single evolving research line — it reflects two independent departments accessing EU funding in separate waves. In 2016, their food science or agriculture faculty entered European research through MyToolBox, contributing to mycotoxin reduction and food safety toolbox development. By 2019, a completely different unit — most likely in law, political science, or social sciences — joined ASILE to work on international refugee governance and UN compact implementation. These two topics share no methodological or thematic overlap, which means SDU's EU engagement is faculty-driven rather than shaped by a coherent institutional research strategy.

The shift between fields is abrupt and department-driven, making the direction of any future SDU collaboration entirely dependent on which faculty next pursues EU funding — there is no visible institutional trajectory to extrapolate from.

How they like to work

SDU has participated exclusively as a consortium partner and has never taken a coordinator role, which is common for non-EU associated country universities entering H2020 for the first time. Their involvement in two large, multi-partner consortia suggests they are recruited for specific expertise contributions rather than for project management capacity. With 37 unique partners across 17 countries from just two projects, they have been embedded in well-connected international consortia rather than building a dense bilateral network of repeat collaborators.

SDU has connected with 37 unique partners across 17 countries through just 2 projects, indicating they joined large, geographically diverse consortia in both cases. Their network is wide but shallow — built from two distinct research communities (food safety and asylum governance) that do not overlap.

What sets them apart

SDU is one of a small number of Turkish universities with verified H2020 participation in both agricultural food safety research and international refugee governance — two fields with high policy relevance in the Turkish context. Turkey's position as the world's largest refugee-hosting country gives SDU's social science faculty a grounded, real-world perspective on asylum governance that Western European partners often lack. Isparta's agricultural identity may also give their food science faculty applied local context for mycotoxin research in Mediterranean crop systems.

Highlights from their portfolio

• ASILE
  Their largest project by far at EUR 88,795 in EC funding, and unusually relevant given Turkey's central role in global refugee flows — making SDU a geopolitically meaningful partner in asylum governance research.
• MyToolBox
  Demonstrates applied food science capacity, contributing to a practical toolbox for mycotoxin management across the food and feed supply chain — a topic with direct commercial relevance for agricultural businesses.