Sabanci Group, in the established Sabancı University in 1994, received Turkey's largest family foundations, the Sabancı Foundation in leadership.

Turkey had a "world university" with the founding vision, in August 1995, from 22 countries, working in different disciplines over 50 scientists, researchers, students and business people met in a search conference in Istanbul. The philosophy of a world university to be established in Istanbul was created at the conference: "Creating and developing together".

The search conference was followed by the design committees supported by student trends research. During the design process, 13 design committees were formed to work on programs and courses within the framework of interdisciplinary approaches. The University Administration Project was initiated in cooperation with Deloitte & Touche consulting firm to create the university's business processes and management structure as well as design studies in the academic field.

At the end of Sabancı University's design efforts, instead of choosing a single university as a model or mimicking different examples and practices, a new and unique university model was created.

The groundbreaking ceremony of Sabancı University was held on July 31, 1997. In October 1998, following the emergence of the general structure of the university, it was applied to become a member of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). Our university admitted to the EFQM membership is the first university in Turkey and accepted.

In October 1999, Sabancı University welcomed the first students and began teaching. Our university is today taken as an example by many universities in Turkey and abroad.