Selen A. Ercan is a Professor in Political Science and the Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She leads the Centre’s research cluster on  Building Democratic Resilience and serves as the Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Discovery Project (2022-26), Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks.

Selen's work explores public deliberation across diverse settings, from structured forums to the wider public sphere, examining how deliberative practices can enhance democratic governance, and strengthen democratic resilience. 

Her recent publications include Mending Democracy: Democratic Repair in Disconnected Times (Oxford University Press, 2020, with Hendriks and Boswell), and Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy (lead editor, Oxford University Press, 2022). Selen has published three books and over fifty journal articles and book chapters exploring theory and practice of deliberative democracy, democratic innovations, multiculturalism, social movements, alternative forms of political participation and qualitative research methods, among other topics.

Selen has twice won the Policy and Politics journal's Best Paper Prize (in 2018 and 2020) for her work on deliberative systems.  In 2021, she received the  Teaching Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning from the University of Canberra. In 2024, she was honoured with the Academic Leadership Award by the Australian Political Studies Association in recognition of her leadership and contributions to the field of Political Science. 

Selen has received research grants from instiutions including the Australian Research Council, New South Wales Government, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Heinrich Böll Foundation (Germany), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada).  She has held research positions at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (Germany), Australian National University (Australia); as well as visiting research/teaching fellowships in the Political Science programs of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), Nagoya University (Japan), and Stuttgart University (Germany).

Selen speaks English, German and Turkish.

Full list of publications available in GoogleScholar

Current Positions outside of the University of Canberra 

• Chair, Participatory Governance Cluster of the global research project, Participedia, Strengthening democracy by mobilizing knowledge of democratic innovations (2020-present).
• Associate Editor, Democratic Theory. An Interdisciplinary Journal (2014-present). 

Google Scholar Profile