Profiling of Turkish third-cycle theses in design: Bibliometric analysis of the Yök thesis center

This paper presents the results of research aiming to establish the prevalence and general profile of doctoral and doctoral-equivalent design theses from higher education institutions (HEIs) in Türkiye. Such theses are part of ‘third-cycle’ education, with ‘second-cycle’ being Master’s level and ‘first-cycle’ being undergraduate level, respectively. With 29 active degree programs, Türkiye ranks as the second most prolific provider of third-cycle design education amongst 27 Erasmus+ countries (D.Doc, 2023), positioned between the United Kingdom (61 programs) and Italy (10 programs). [...]