Didem Tekeli

Didem Tekeli is a Research Fellow at the Florence School of Transnational Governance within the European University Institute. Prior to her academic career, she spent nearly a decade as an International Relations researcher and has been actively involved in civil society for 17 years, focusing on human rights advocacy, project design, and implementation. She has collaborated with diverse organizations, including government agencies, and served as an independent consultant for the past seven years, applying a rights-based approach to areas such as women's human rights and disability rights.

• Fields of expertise
• Democracy
• Trust in civil society
• Co-creation approaches for social change
• Human rights (women's and disability rights)

In 2024, she launched a podcast in Turkish to provide an accessible learning tool for civil actors aiming to create projects for social change. At the Florence School of Transnational Governance, her current work explores conceptualizing trust to enhance mutual respect and recognition among civil society actors, while analyzing co-creation methodologies to build trust between civil society and academics.