As the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) marked its 97th anniversary on Wednesday, its director, Ibrahim Kalın, announced the launch of the National Intelligence Academy. Chaired by professor Talha Köse, the academy is the first of its kind in Türkiye and will soon admit students seeking a career in the intelligence community and other fields.

MIT's updated website includes information about the academy, whose objective will be "to advance the field of intelligence as a science in Türkiye by conducting postgraduate education and scientific research in the areas of intelligence, security and strategy."

The academy will offer master's and doctoral programs to all students who graduated from relevant undergraduate programs.

"Students enrolled in these programs will be able to study intelligence, security, strategy, regional studies, cybersecurity, cryptology, satellite space systems, artificial intelligence, data analytics and related fields in an interdisciplinary scope," MIT says on its website.

Its vision is summed up as "establishing a competent intelligence community in Türkiye that is receptive to global engagement in the current competitive landscape of the multipolar world."

Inherent to its nature, MIT is shrouded in secrecy and its workings have remained under wraps for decades; but since 2010, the agency has been undergoing what has been broadly described as a "revolution" through which it launched headline-making cross-border counterterrorism operations, busted spy networks at home and developed a complementary mechanism for Turkish diplomacy. Tracking the agency's profile has thus become a lot easier in the past decade, as opposed to a "darker," that is an unknown era in Türkiye's intelligence past.

The National Intelligence Academy will conduct scientific studies and research and development work. It also plans to bring together academics and other experts working in intelligence fields through workshops, seminars and conferences.

The academy will have institutes where students will be enrolled and research centers for scientific studies and other academic work. The curriculum covers everything from intelligence classes, research methodology and security to Western philosophy, Islamic art and cinema.

The academy's director, Talha Köse, has expertise in conflict analysis resolution and international relations. He worked as the Society Research Desk's director and Brussels desk's director at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA). He is among the founders of Istanbul-based Ibn Haldun University, where he chaired the Department of Political Science and International Relations. His research interests include international relations, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, Turkish politics, ethnic and sectarian identities, and radicalization.

The academy also released its first report this month. The report "Far Rights Movements in Western Countries" tackles organized activities of far-right groups and extremists. It highlights that far-right groups focused their propaganda on the youth between the ages of 13 and 18 and sought to recruit members through gaming platforms, social media websites and even gyms. The report says in 2023, far-right groups sought attention through acts of provocation, particularly the burning of Islam's holy book, the Quran. It concludes that far-right movements "develop and evolve" as conventional threats are replaced. It says 2023 was a year where the issue had been a major threat for many countries, noting that far-right movements fed upon increasing radicalization, especially during and after the coronavirus pandemic, which fueled conspiracy theories. It notes that security forces are still unable to achieve desired results against new far-right threats through conventional methods as the issue itself was not "conventional" and overlapped with boundaries of personal freedom of expression in democratic Western countries.