Professor Umut Turksen

Professor Dr. Umut Turksen is a business-facing, student-centred, and reflective academic leader with over 30 years of pedagogical experience and more than two decades of international expertise in designing, managing, and delivering legal education, research, and high-impact consultancy projects within prestigious institutions.

Prof. Turksen has extensive experience in cross-cultural management, intercultural communication, and multidisciplinary research within legal and educational contexts. He has successfully led REF submissions by fostering person-centred, skills-based, and sustainable teaching and research environments, driven by a passion for innovation, excellence, and positive societal impact—particularly in the areas of social justice and wellbeing. 

Prof. Turksen possesses both theoretical and practical knowledge across a wide spectrum of legal domains, including international trade and economic law, public international law, WTO law, international arbitration, EU law, constitutional law, comparative counter-terrorism, human rights, financial crime and anti-corruption, energy law, and emerging areas such as AI and virtual assets law. He has also published extensively in the fields of energy law and security, international trade and development, and arbitration.

He is a recognised leader in securing and managing external funding, he has a proven track record of forming and leading high-performance, interdisciplinary teams to deliver legal consultancy, professional training, and education in a timely, collaborative, and impactful manner. He is one fo the founders of the International Society of Economic Criminology and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Risk Regulation, Law, and Policy.

Prof. Turksen has served as a consultant and trainer for leading international corporations and government initiatives, offering expertise in international security, countering financial crime and terrorist financing, and the governance of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.

He was the principal investigator of the EU-funded project PROTAX (https://protaxwebtoolkit.eu/), which addressed the challenges of tax crime across Europe. More recently, he coordinated the TRACE project (https://trace-illicit-money-flows.eu) which developed AI-driven tools for investigating illicit financial flows. Currently, he plays a key role in the KEYSTONE project (keystone-project.com) as an advisor on the legal, social, and ethical impact assessment. This poject focuses on the standardisation of data management and compliance across transport sectors and governmental authorities.