Inception of Bahcesehir University UK

Congratulations to all those who supported the creation of the Bahcesehir University UK (BAU UK). The University will operate under the University Centre Garden City underpinned by all the group’s academic and industrial units. Special thanks to the staff members at the Centre for Factories of the Future (C4FF) and MarEdu Partnership (MarEdu). Seeking approval from the UK Government to be allowed to use the title of the ‘University’ and registering the University with Companies House together with obtaining the ‘ac.uk’ required a concentrated effort by the core project team members. The new University is based in the UK. C4FF and MarEdu are both registered UK legal entities (one a limited company and the other a partnership) with many years of designing and running joint degrees including MPhil/PhDs. The respective websites can be found at www.c4ff.co.uk & www.maredu.co.uk. The University will operate through its academic partners and at its newly established business centre, Berkeley House, in Kenilworth, the heart of England, during its initial development phases. Its first Foundation Degree will be offered through the Warwickshire College Group and the Degree top-up through De Montfort University, starting in October 2019.

The long term aim of the new University is to establish a series of novel Engineering and Business programmes in collaboration with its partners in UK, Europe and worldwide.

In order to support the long-term aim of the new University a collaboration agreement has been signed with several UK colleges and universities to implement joint degree programmes and research projects; in particular C4FF has signed up with a group of colleges and universities in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Furthermore, C4FF intends to continue its top-up degree programme and MPhil/PhD with De Montfort University. As such, in the coming years the new University intends to be involved in the development and implementation of several degree programmes; taking responsibility for its own quality assurance and monitoring but always enduring endorsement, recognition or validation or accreditation by chartered professional bodies or well known universities for its courses/modules/programmes as applicable. The new University will also be involved in the fundraising, networking and planning in order to expand its current centre and ultimately establish a full University campus jointly with its academic and industrial partners.

C4FF was initiated by our Chairman, Professor Ziarati in 1981, which became a UK Government initiative early in 1980s and later nominated as one of the 10 UK’s innovative projects in the EU’s network of innovative projects EUROTECNET in 1984. The EUROTECNET formally ended in 1996 when C4FF opted to become a limited education and research company. The following files give the sample earlier collaboration with DfEE http://www.c4ff.co.uk/References/DFEE_Reference.pdf and sample DfEE publication on C4FF’s work in EUROTECNET (http://www.c4ff.co.uk/History.aspx).

A review of our website www.c4ff.co.uk will indicate that we have helped to establish several universities overseas and have been involved with the UK Government acting as Quality Assessors and with several Chartered professional institutions as degree programme accreditors. Our involvement with major awarding bodies such as Pearsons/Edexcel/BTEC goes back to some thirty five years, offering degrees, HNDs and so forth – see for example www.maredu.co.uk and letters of commendation from colleges and universities in ‘About Us’ in the C4FF’s website. We have supported and are supporting British universities in several joint PhD programmes as supervisors or advisors and run joint degree modules with universities in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. We have initiated and supported several major European/global platforms; see for instance www.marifuture.org and www.manufuture.org. The former is still being coordinated by us. Our Centres have developed many e-learning courses with some given the award of ‘Best in Europe’ by the EU, and many are accredited by universities or institutions such as IMarEST. We are the initiator of the CDT (now just referred to as DT) A-levels and ran the first CDT teacher training course in the UK with support from the Welsh Office. Our history (http://www.c4ff.co.uk/History.aspx) lists the awards given to us and the work we have done with many colleges and universities in the UK. Recently we have established a network of people and organisations supporting STEM in schools (see our website: www.inspire-group.org) and are in the process of establishing a national Centre for it in our newly acquired building in Kenilworth.

Having worked with Turkey in recent years, see our sample partnership with them www.maredu.co.uk, and having helped to establish several institutions including two universities in Turkey (Dogus http://www.dogus.edu.tr/en/ and Piri Reis https://www.pirireis.edu.tr/EN), we have decided to establish a private university in the UK in order to expand on the joint programmes and research projects we currently carrying out in partnership with several universities in the UK, Turkey and elsewhere in Europe and worldwide.

It is worth noting that several organisation and universities have already established an office at the group’s Business Centre, Berkeley House, in Kenilworth, and this has led to several funded and prestigious education and research projects. Examples of these projects can be found at www.marifuture.org.

Professor Dr Reza Ziarati

Group Chairman