Asu Aksoy is a professor at the İstanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Communications and is the head of the Arts and Cultural Management Department since 2016. Between 2010- 2016, she was the director of İstanbul Bilgi University Cultural Policy and Management Research Centre (KPY). After working in the UK on academic research programmes on communications, migration, media and cultural identity, she worked as the international projects coordinator of the arts and culture center of İstanbul Bilgi University – santralistanbul.

She was one of the coordinators of a major project on the cultural economy of Istanbul, commissioned by the the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency. She was the Istanbul curator of the 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, Making City, 2012, and she participated in Istanbul’s first Design Biennale in 2012 with a project on informal housing culture in Istanbul. Professor Aksoy has undertaken studies on cultural development and cultural heritage management planning for municipalities and public authorities. The study carried out for Eyüp Municipality completed in 2015 is an example, where the main aim was to develop an area management plan for the historic heritage site of Eyüp. She has also carried out international projects, such as the project titled “Access to Art and Culture: A Comparative Analysis in Europe and Policy Recommendations” funded by the EU Culture 2007-2013 programme. 

She has publications in the areas of transnational media, migration and cultural identity, on the cultural and policy aspects of urban change and transformation of Istanbul, and on cultural policy issues in Turkey. 

The following are some of her publications in English language: 

• with Kevin Robins, Aksoy (2015) Transnationalism, Migration and the Challenge to Europe, London: Routledge. 

• Aksoy, A. and Şeyben, Burcu Yasemin (2014) “Storm over the state cultural institutions: new cultural policy direction in Turkey”, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 21(2). 

• Aksoy (2012) “Riding the Storm: New İstanbul”, City, 16 (No. 1-2). 

• Aksoy (2011), ‘The Violence of Change’, in Living in the Endless City, edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, London: Phaidon. 

• Aksoy, A. and Robins, K.(2012) ‘Reshaping, Installing, Pioneering, Spreaheading… Realignment of Istanbul’, in Cities, Cultural Policy and Governance, edited by Helmut Anheier and Yudhishtir Raj Isar London: Sage. 

• Aksoy, A. Robins, K.(2010) “Heritage, Memory, Debris: Sulukule, Don’t Forget”, in Cultures and Globalization Series 4:  Heritage, Memory, Identity, edited by H. Anheimer, R.Isar, London:  Sage Publications. 

• Aksoy, A., Robins, K.(2009) “Turkish Satellite Television:Towards the Demystification of Elsewhere”, in Electronic Elsewheres, edited by L. Spigel, K. Soyoung, C. Berry. Minnesota Press.