Ali Baydarol is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of International Relations at Özyeğin University, where he currently teaches a course on the European Union. In 2025/2026, he was a Mercator-Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) Fellow at the IPC. He received his PhD in Political Science from Sabancı University in 2025 and conducted part of his doctoral research at the University of Chicago in 2024/2025 with a TÜBİTAK 2214-A scholarship. His work has been published in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, Turkish Studies (co-authored) and Middle Eastern Studies. He has also contributed to edited volumes published by Springer Nature and İletişim Publishing and has written IPC- Mercator analyses. A chapter of his dissertation received the Prof. Dr. Nermin Abadan Unat Best Article Award from the Turkish Political Science Association in 2023. In 2021, he received the First Year Teaching Assistant Award at Sabancı University. His research focuses on the political economy of EU-Turkey relations.

Political economy of EU-Turkey relations, EU industrial policy, the EU-Turkey automotive supply chain, middle powers, economic reforms