Ergüder, Üstün (b. May 10, 1937, Istanbul), academician and foundation director. He has been a member of the Vehbi Koç Foundation Board of Directors since 1997.
After graduating from Robert College in 1957, Ergüder completed his undergraduate studies at Manchester University Faculty of Economic and Social Studies in England in 1960. From 1961 to 1962, he worked as an assistant at Middle East Technical University. In 1969, he received a doctorate in political sciences from Syracuse University in the USA before joining the teaching staff of the Robert College undergraduate department, now Boğaziçi University (BU). He was visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan (1974-75) and was head of the BU School of Foreign Languages (1978-81). During the same period, 1979-81, he was director of the Center for Applied Research at BU Faculty of Administrative Sciences, before serving as vice dean of the same faculty (1982-83). He was a visiting lecturer at New York State University in Binghamton (1983-84) and at Syracuse University in 1984. From 1986 to 1989, Ergüder was once again director of the BU School of Foreign Languages and became chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the BU Faculty of Administrative Sciences in 1989. In 1992, he was appointed rector of BU. After leaving this role in 2000, he began teaching at Sabancı University (SU), also becoming director of the university-affiliated Istanbul Policy Center. He was a co-founder of the ERG (Education Reform Enterprise), which was affiliated to SU, becoming director in 2003. Professor Ergüder was made emeritus professor in 2010 and is the current president of the ERG Executive Board.
In addition to his academic responsibilities, Professor Ergüder has also held various administrative roles, including founding member of the Turkish Foundation for Economic and Social Studies (TESEV) (1994), member of the TRT Executive Board (1996-2000), member of the European Cultural Foundation Executive Board (1996-2004), member of the Open Society Institute Advisory Committee (2001-03), member (1994-2014) and president (2001-16) of the administrative board of the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TÜSEV), and member (2004-09) and president (2009-13) of the Magna Charta Observatory Council.
Professor Ergüder is an honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences and has published a number of essays and books, including Türkiye'de Tarım Fiyat Destek Siyasası ve Siyaset (1981; Politics and Agricultural Price Support Policy in Turkey), Seçim Sistemleri ve Türk Demokrasisi (1981; Electoral Systems and Turkish Democracy) and Yükseköğretimin Fırtınalı Sularında (2015; Higher Education in Crisis).