Since 2022, the Turkish Maarif Foundation has been organizing the Symposium on Turkish Language Teaching and Turkology in the Balkans in cooperation with the Balkan Research Center of the University of New York Tirana and various universities, with the aim of highlighting studies conducted in the fields of Turkish language teaching and Turkology in the Balkans and making these studies accessible to the public.

The first International Symposium on Turkish Language Teaching and Turkology in the Balkans was held in 2022 in Albania, hosted by Tirana New York University. The second symposium took place in 2023 in Türkiye, hosted by Istanbul University. The third was held in 2024 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, hosted by the International University of Sarajevo. The fourth symposium was organized in 2025 in Konya, hosted by the Konya Metropolitan Municipality, at Taş Bina and the Selçuklu Congress Center.

While the primary focus of the symposium has consistently been Turkish language teaching and Turkology in the Balkans, a specific annual theme has been designated starting from the second symposium. The theme of the second symposium was “Cultural Interaction,” the third symposium focused on “City, Culture, and Civilization: The Balkans,” and the fourth symposium was held under the theme “Migration and Its Traces in the Balkans.” Over the past four years, a total of 505 papers have been submitted to the symposium, and 267 papers have been accepted for presentation. During this period, the symposium has reached more than 400 researchers, considering only one author per paper.

The fifth International Symposium on Turkish Language Teaching and Turkology in the Balkans will be held in Skopje on 5-7 November 2026, in cooperation with and hosted by the International Balkan University (IBU). The main theme of this year’s symposium has been determined as “Folk Literature and Oral Culture in the Balkans