With a generous new endowment from Caroline Koç, KUDAR is continuing to grow, to build its national and international footprint, and to pursue its mission to be the foremost international institution studying the relationship between society and the sea.

Now in our fifth year of providing students and scholars with the support they need to study material data that illuminate the human relationship with the sea, KUDAR continues to grow with a generous new line of support from Caroline Koç, enhancing our infrastructure, field research, and resources for additional students and scholars.  Since 2017, we have maintained a cohort of students from Türkiye, Europe, and North America, built a library collection of approximately 300 volumes, and hosted four post-doctoral fellows in collaboration with ANAMED, the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations.  In addition to two international workshops, our past guest lecturers have visited from the Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome, Bilkent University, the National Museum of Denmark, the Newport Medieval Ship Project, the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and the National Heritage Institute of Tunisia.  We are currently leading or participating in numerous field and museum research projects in Türkiye and Italy, and our students are pursuing MA and PhD research on women’s creation of ship graffiti, Roman-era maritime landscapes of Montenegro, ancient and medieval amphorae, vernacular shipbuilding methods in Italy, and combining 3D printing with responsive materials and the curation of maritime collections.  With Caroline Koç’s generosity, we are able to build on this foundation and potential, continue to support innovative new research by students and scholars, and plan new programs for the future.

To support KUDAR’s overall mission to study the relationship between society and the sea, we will focus on five goals over the coming years:

• Supporting Postdoctoral and Senior Scholars:  In collaboration with ANAMED, we provide six and nine-month residential fellowships in Istanbul for scholars to pursue their own projects, with access to institutional resources throughout the city.  We are now able to expand the resources and infrastructure we offer to residential scholars.  If you are interested in applying and would like more information about our research priorities, please visit the ANAMED website or our Fellowships page for more information, or write to us with your questions: kudar@ku.edu.tr
• Increasing our Student Cohort:  Since 2017, we have had steady growth in our student numbers.  This endowment allows us to support a larger number of top-quality students pursuing research agendas of their own making, or related to faculty projects in the field, a museum, or research laboratory.  For more information about our fellowship opportunities for students, please visit our Fellowships page.
• Cultivating Research: The past years have been an opportunity to explore research endeavours in Türkiye and abroad with a generous group of collaborators, under the water, along the foreshore, in a laboratory, or with museum collections.  The steady stream of support offered by Caroline Koç’s endowment enables us to strengthen and expand the foundations of these projects, while establishing long-term plans for their continuity and publication.
• Building New Institutional Ties:  In addition to our collaborations with the University of Ankara, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, and the American Research Institute Türkiye, KUDAR’s network also includes projects with the University of Naples l’Orientale and the Institut National du Patrimoine in Tunisia.  We plan to continue building more institutional ties in the coming years, creating new international and interdisciplinary opportunities beneficial to our students and scholars.
• Expanding our Infrastructure: Infrastructure for data collection, analysis and preservation is essential to our research, and our Conservation and Documentation laboratory and its associated field equipment is the foundation for our work.  With this generous support, we plan to expand our abilities to analyze and visualize the data we collect from material culture in the field, laboratory, or museum, and the underwater and coastal environments, giving our students valuable training for their careers.