He is a professor of economics and economic history. He was born in Istanbul in 1966. In 1989, he completed his undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Marmara University. He obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees in the field of economic history at the same university. His academic work generally addresses changes in economic and financial institutions specific to the Middle East, and particularly to the Ottoman Empire. Among Erol Özvar’s works published in Turkish and foreign languages, his book titled The Malikâne Practice in Ottoman Finance (Istanbul: Kitabevi Publishing, 2004) was awarded the best book prize in 2005 by the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre affiliated with Garanti Bank. Later, together with Mehmet Genç, he prepared Ottoman budgets for publication. This work, titled Ottoman Finance: Institutions and Budgets (Istanbul: Garanti Bank Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre, 2006), was published in two volumes and was awarded the International Halil İnalcık History Prize in 2013. Between 2009 and 2012, he worked as a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and in the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, where he received research support. He served as a member of the scientific board of the Turkish Historical Society and is a board member of the International Association for Turkish Social and Economic History. He is also a member of the scientific board of the international economic history institution (Fondazione Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica F. Datini–Italy). Erol Özvar, who is a faculty member in the Faculty of Economics, is married and has three children. He was appointed as President of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) for a second term with the Presidential Decree dated August 1, 2025, and numbered 32973.