Sakarya University (SAU) maintains a comprehensive, formal, and systematic governance framework that ensures continuous, structured, and transparent engagement with local stakeholders across all academic and administrative units. The University’s Strategic Plan (2023–2027) identifies stakeholder participation as a core governance principle and mandates the integration of external stakeholder perspectives into planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes. Stakeholder analysis, participation mechanisms, advisory structures, and feedback loops are operationalized across faculties, institutes, vocational schools, and administrative units, ensuring that engagement is institutionalized rather than event-based.
SAU’s participatory governance model is aligned with national public administration requirements — including Law No. 5018 on Public Financial Management and Control — and with international frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). External stakeholders including local governments, industry representatives, chambers of commerce, civil society organizations, NGOs, alumni, technopark companies, and international partners contribute to strategic planning through surveys, workshops, focus groups, consultative meetings, and structured advisory boards. Feedback collected through these mechanisms informs the University’s situation analysis, goal formulation, and performance indicator development, ensuring participatory and evidence-based decision-making.
Advisory Boards as Formal Participatory Bodies (2025)
Under the Sakarya University Advisory Board Directive (Senate Decision No. 592, 9 September 2021), the University and each academic unit operate Advisory Boards. Unit boards have up to 20 members, including representatives of the business world approved by the Senate, alumni and student representatives and up to five temporary members, who serve two-year terms. The boards meet at least twice a year, at the start of the autumn and spring semesters, and advise on labor-market expectations, curriculum updates, accreditation, graduate competences and internships, as well as on cooperation with public institutions, local governments, NGOs and professional chambers. Their decisions are advisory: they are recorded in minutes, submitted to the Senate or the relevant unit boards for discussion, followed up through implementation reports, and summarized in an annual activity report that feeds into the University’s quality processes. For instance, the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Business is chaired by a Vice-Chair of the Board of the German–Turkish Chamber of Industry and Commerce (AHK Türkiye) and includes senior executives from industry. It contributes to the faculty’s curriculum development and strategic planning and supports its international accreditation efforts, including the AACSB process, as recorded in the Board’s 2024–2025 activity report. In 2025 the Board held four ordinary meetings (6 February, 17 April, 26 May and 24 July 2025). The April and May meetings focused on the DİA Cloud ERP Laboratory project and the planned National Conference of Business Schools, and the July meeting reviewed the 2024–2025 academic year and set strategic goals for the following year. This engagement resulted in a ten-year cooperation protocol with DİA Software for the establishment of an ERP laboratory, signed on 8 July 2025 with the participation of the Rector, and in the opening of the DİA Cloud ERP Laboratory at the Faculty in October 2025, attended by the Sakarya Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SATSO), business representatives and Advisory Board members.
Opening of the DİA Cloud ERP Laboratory, Faculty of Business, October 2025
Advisory Boards met across the University throughout 2025 with the participation of public institutions, local organizations and sector representatives:
Faculty of Health Sciences Advisory Board meeting, held in support of the University’s research university process (2025).
Faculty of Health Sciences: At its first meeting of 2025, the board brought together the Sakarya Provincial Directorate of Health, Sakarya Training and Research Hospital and the health sciences faculties of Kocaeli University and Sakarya University of Applied Sciences to discuss joint work in support of the University’s research university process. (2025)
Faculty of Education Advisory Board meeting with representatives of the Provincial Directorate of National Education and private schools (2025).
Faculty of Education: The board met on 30 April and 26 November 2025 with representatives of the Provincial Directorate of National Education and private schools. It discussed cooperation with the Directorates of National Education and of Youth and Sports, private schools and public education centers, the professional competences of pre-service teachers, activities under the University–Provincial Directorate of National Education protocol, the performance of pre-service teachers in practice schools and joint national and EU projects.
Members of the Faculty of Communication Advisory Board with representatives of the Press Advertising Agency, news agencies and journalists’ associations (2025).
Faculty of Communication: The board brought together the Director General of the Press Advertising Agency (Basın İlan Kurumu, a public institution) and its Sakarya Regional Director, the regional directors of Anadolu Agency and İhlas News Agency, and the presidents of the Sakarya Journalists’ Association and the Sakarya Journalists’ Society. It agreed on joint campaigns, career days and portfolio reviews, public-interest awareness campaigns, academic–sector partnerships on combating disinformation and professional ethics, and support from the Press Advertising Agency for student internships. (Dec.2025)
Department of Public Administration Advisory Board meeting (28 February 2025).
Department of Public Administration: The 2024–2025 Department Advisory Board brought together the Deputy Governor of Kocaeli, the President of the Sakarya 2nd Administrative Court, the President of the Inspection Board of Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality and the principal of a local primary school, together with a student representative and the heads of the department’s academic divisions. The board reviewed the department’s programs to safeguard their quality, support their continuous and systematic evaluation and contribute to accreditation. (28.02.2025)
In addition to its own advisory structures, the University takes part in the city-wide participatory governance structure established under the Municipal Law and the City Council Regulation. The Sakarya City Council (Kent Konseyi) brings together representatives of local government, the Governorship, chambers and commodity exchanges, civil society organizations, foundations, trade unions, cooperatives, the media, and the city’s youth and women’s assemblies. Sakarya University is represented on the Council’s Executive Board by Prof. Dr. Bünyamin Bezci, elected at the Council’s third ordinary General Assembly in January 2020 for the 2020–2026 term, alongside representatives of the Governorship, the Metropolitan Municipality, the Sakarya Federation of Neighborhood Heads (Muhtars), civil society platforms, and youth and women’s organizations. Through this representation, the University contributes its academic expertise to deliberations on urban development and community priorities. In 2025, the City Council’s Youth Assembly also co-organized activities on campus with University student societies, such as a communication seminar with public broadcasting professionals.
Integration into Quality Assurance and Institutional Planning
Stakeholder participation is further integrated into the University Quality Assurance System, where internal and external representatives take part in quality monitoring and continuous improvement through the University Quality Commission. The Sakarya University Quality Commission is a high-level body responsible for overseeing the institution’s quality assurance and continuous improvement processes. Its membership includes the Rector, vice-rectors, the secretary-general, representatives from academic units, and student representatives. The University employs a multi-layered participation mechanism: the President of the Student Council and elected student representatives serve as natural members of both the Senate and the Quality Commission, ensuring direct student involvement in academic governance and quality processes. Academic and administrative staff participate through SAÜDEK and the Office of Institutional Analysis and Quality Improvement, supported by “quality ambassadors” appointed within each unit. The Commission regularly reviews monitoring and self-assessment results, integrating feedback from internal stakeholders to shape improvement actions. In addition, perspectives from external stakeholders—including local governments, professional chambers, NGOs, and the business community—inform the Commission’s work, contributing to a more inclusive and stakeholder-driven quality assurance system.
Technology Transfer and University–Industry Collaboration Mechanisms
Sakarya Teknokent and the Technology Transfer Office complement these bodies by providing structured channels for industry participation, such as University–Industry Collaboration Workshops and the CoWork program, which are described under the indicator Identification and Engagement of Local Stakeholders.
Transparency and Public Accountability (2025)
SAÜ reinforces transparent and participatory governance by publishing all annual administrative and performance results in publicly accessible Annual Activity Reports. These reports document stakeholder engagement processes, Advisory Board meetings, collaborative projects, and outcomes achieved throughout the year, ensuring traceability and accountability.
Through its Advisory Boards, the University Quality Commission and its representation on the Sakarya City Council, Sakarya University maintains standing participatory bodies through which local stakeholders contribute to its decision-making, in line with the Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions Goal and as implemented throughout the 2025 calendar year.
