After graduating from the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Middle East Technical University (1996), Ercan Gündoğan did his master's degree in Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments (with the thesis "Inserting Space into Social Theory: The Case of David Harvey") and received his doctorate in Political Science and Public Administration (with his thesis titled “A Critical Evaluation of the Socialist Journal ‘Aydınlık’ within a Marxian Theoretical Framework”) (2005) at the same university. After ten years of civil service, he moved to academic life in 2007 and started to work as a lecturer in the departments of political science, public administration and international relations. Gündoğan received his first associate professorship in "Political Science and International Relations" from Girne American University, and his second associate professorship in "Political Thoughts" from Inter-University Council, Turkey.
Prior to TED University, he taught full time at European University of Lefke, Universum University College, Girne American University and Cyprus International University, and as a visiting professor at Corvinus University of Budapest. In addition to his duties as department chair, Gündoğan contributed to the establishment and development of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs and research centers, and directed master's and doctoral theses.
He mainly works in the fields of political and social theory, political economy, world politics, political and social geography. Gündoğan, who has books, articles and conference papers mostly written in English, also wrote regular columns in newspapers at certain times. He also has his own blog.
Besides English, Gündoğan knows basic German, Spanish, Russian, Greek and Albanian.