IDOS researcher Dr Semuhi Sinanoğlu has successfully completed a highly competitive application process and has been selected for the 2025 Marshall Memorial Fellow Cohort. During his fellowship, he will take a closer look at business support for democracy.
©German Marshall Fund
The Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF) program, launched in 1982, prepares individuals from both sides of the Atlantic for transatlantic leadership. The year-long programme cultivates strong international bonds, develops professional and leadership skills, and promotes democratic values and public diplomacy. It provides fellows with opportunities to build their competence in transatlantic relations, leadership, and community building through virtual and in-person meetings, three weeks of immersive travel, peer learning, and networking.
As part of his fellowship, Dr Semuhi Sinanoğlu will be working on a new project on business support for democracy. The project aims to improve transatlantic cooperation in corporate civic responsibility to safeguard democracy, especially against information pollution and disorder.
So far, there has been insufficient cross-sectoral collaboration between the private sector and international democracy protection stakeholders. In some contexts, the ecosystem suffers from unproductive conversations in silos, failing to reach out to non-traditional actors. As a remedy, on 28 November 2024, IDOS organised a panel in Berlin titled “Corporate Civic Responsibility for Safeguarding Democracy”, which brought together representatives from different sectors and business associations. The discussions have prompted that there is a clear value-added to engaging businesspeople for democracy protection as non-traditional/emerging actors, but such engagement requires a new toolkit and framework of conservation.
Sinanoğlu will be developing this project throughout the fellowship.
