What does 'recognised publisher' mean in Turkish academic assessment?

Every press that publishes academic books in Türkiye hears the question: “Will a book from your house count towards associate professorship?” For the author it is a career question; for the publisher it is usually a question without a clean answer — because the answer is not on a single list. It sits at the intersection of two separate regulatory frames, and it has changed more than once in recent years.

This piece separates three things: what the regulation says, what the associate professorship criteria require, and how a press prepares for the status.

First, the distinction: two frames, two questions

The confusion starts with the assumption that there is one “recognised publisher” rule. There are two frames:

1. The Academic Incentive Allowance Regulation (Akademik Teşvik Ödeneği Yönetmeliği) — calculates an academic’s annual incentive score. This is where “recognised national/international publisher” is defined.
2. The Interuniversity Board (ÜAK) associate professorship criteria — set out how books and book chapters are scored in an application, through tables updated annually.

A book can land differently in the two. Before telling an author “it counts” or “it doesn’t”, asking which application they mean is the most honest first answer a publisher can give.

The definitions in regulation — and why to speak carefully today

The Academic Incentive Allowance Regulation defined two concepts in its definitions article:

• Recognised national publisher: a publisher active at national level regularly for at least five years, having previously published at least twenty books by different authors in the same field.
• Recognised international publisher: a publisher active at international level regularly for at least five years, having published at least twenty books by different authors in the same field in languages other than Turkish.

Both definitions have been altered by the courts. A ruling of the Eighth Chamber of the Council of State (Danıştay) dated 14/6/2022 annulled the phrase “whose effectiveness and standing in its field is recognised by a decision of the university senate” in both definitions (finalised by the Administrative Law Chambers Council on 5/4/2023). Clause (k), carrying the national publisher definition, was annulled by the Eighth Chamber’s ruling of 3/4/2024, case E.2021/6094 – K.2024/2115; the annulment became final with the Council’s decision of 8/9/2025, E.2024/2221 – K.2025/1570.

So do not rely on the sentences above as the basis of an application. The text, the effects of the rulings and subsequent administrative amendments shift over time. At the moment of an application there are two places to look: the current consolidated text on mevzuat.gov.tr and your university’s procedures for that particular activity year. The binding answer always sits with your own institution’s incentive committee.

How binding are the circulating “recognised publisher lists”?

Numerous “recognised national/international publisher lists” circulate online, most of them from universities’ own announcement pages. They show internal practice; they are not a central, binding register. A publisher accepted by one university’s committee may not produce the same outcome at another.

As a publisher, before saying “we are on the list”, say which list, and who published it. Add that the author should check their own institution’s practice — a sentence that builds trust rather than costing you anything.

The ÜAK side: books and book chapters

Three points matter on the associate professorship side.

Books and book chapters are assessed in the same category. Under ÜAK’s arrangement, national/international books and book chapters were gathered under one heading; how heavily each scores depends on the table for the applicant’s basic field.

Book chapters carry two additional conditions. For a chapter to score, all the works in the book are expected to be from the applicant’s field of science, and the book’s editor is expected to be a faculty member registered in YÖKSİS (Prof. Dr., Doç. Dr. or Dr. Öğr. Üyesi). Both conditions bear directly on presses that publish edited volumes: the scope of your call for chapters and your choice of editor determine the book’s academic standing.

The threshold. An associate professorship application requires at least 100 points in total, of which at least 90 are expected to come from post-doctoral work. A single book’s counting or not counting is therefore rarely decisive on its own — but it shapes the balance of the file.

Remember these tables are revised annually; recording the information you give an author as “according to this year’s table” is both accurate and protective.

The real question: how does a press prepare for the status?

This question is almost never written about — the literature is all on the author’s side, asking which publisher to submit to. Yet there is concrete work on the publisher’s side, and all of it concerns how the list is built.

1. Demonstrable continuity. “Regular activity for at least five years” is not a claim but a chain of records: the publisher certificate, ISBN registrations and an unbroken catalogue spread across years. A house that publishes one book and then goes quiet for two years struggles with “regular activity” even having passed the five-year mark. We collected the formal steps in ISBN, banderole and publisher certificate.

2. A list of different authors, in one field. The two qualifiers must be read together: the books must be by different authors and in the same field. Twenty books by one author does not clear the bar; nor do twenty books from twenty unrelated fields. That makes catalogue composition a deliberate decision — one that belongs on the editorial board’s agenda as “which field are we deepening in”.

3. Subject consistency and imprint discipline. Which field each book belongs to, who authored and who edited it, which year it appeared — all of this belongs in the catalogue itself, in the book’s record. A list kept in a separate spreadsheet will not be current three years later when someone assembles an application file. (The anatomy of a book record)

4. A documentable review process. Behind every status argument is one real question: was this book actually reviewed? Where the board’s decision, the reviewer reports, the revision rounds and the acceptance letter are on record, you answer “is this book peer reviewed?” with documents. We described how a process record turns into an application file for journals in the TR Dizin piece; on the book side the logic is identical.

5. Transparency about fees. If authors contribute to costs, writing that plainly does not weaken the press in a status argument — concealing it does. Why that question deserves to be asked first is covered in the submissions piece.

What to tell the author

The honest and useful answer is three sentences: here is the press’s operating history and catalogue composition; here is whether the book’s review process can be documented; and the final call belongs to the author’s own institutional incentive committee.

“It definitely counts” is easy to say and, once wrong, costs a press years of reputation. An answer grounded in documents always outweighs a claim.

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If you want your catalogue to answer this question by itself — which book, in which field, with which author, through which review process — book a demo; we will walk through work records and process history using your own catalogue.