Middle East Technical University

Middle East Technical University

Partner Description

Middle East Technical University (METU), founded in 1956, is an international research university, which seeks excellence in serving the country, region and the world. The proof of concept of METU’s capacity to coordinate projects is given by the English Times Higher Education’s (THE) “World University Rankings Top 400 during 2012–2013”. METU ranks 203rd in the world. METU is the only Turkish university, which has entered the list of “Most Reputable 100 Universities of the World” by ranking in the 71–80 band in 2014, according to the Times Higher Education and Thomson Reuter. METU actively took part in and managed many projects under Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) following 2007, especially 7th Framework Programme as well as other International Projects such as COST, Eureka, NASA, NATO, NSF, UN, UNIDO, UNEP, World Bank, etc.

Role and Commitment of key person(s)

Meryem Beklioğlu (m) (f, PhD freshwater ecology, 1995) is a professor of hydrobiology at the Department of Biological Sciences the Middle East Technical University in Ankara (METU) since 2007. She is a shallow lakes ecosystem ecologist and leads the Limnology laboratory at the Biological Sciences Department (www.limnology.bio.metu.edu.tr), which is actively working on the impact of hydrology, nutrients and climate change in ecology of shallow warm lakes using multiple approaches including in-situ mesocosms experiments which have been undertaken for hypothesis testing to improve the understanding of the impact of multiple stressors. Long-term bio-monitoring and paleoecology using multiple proxies, to enhance spatial resolution snap-shot sampling with space time substitute approaches, catchment and lake modelling have been commonly utilized. She has a great experience in conducting mesocosms experiment that she has published 18 scientific articles on the topic. She has been coordinator and leader of many national and international research projects on structure and function of shallow lakes (e.g. the EU projects: REFRESH, WP2-co leader and MARS, NETLAKE- Cost activity). Grants: national (Turkish) and international (EU,Dutch and Greek funds) peer reviewed research grants. Publications: >96 (including those that are in press) in peer reviewed scientific journals. ISI WoS statistics: 53 articles, 2534 citations, h-index: 27. Project Role: Co-Leader WP5: Outreach: Dissemination and Stakeholder engagement; Task Leader WP4.1: Data collection and processing; Task Leader WP5.4:Engaging with Education: Enhance European human capacity building in mesocosm-based sciences; Task Leader WP6.5: Provision of TA to METU: METU Mesocosm System; Task Contributor WP3.4 Perspectives beyond the project.