The Centre of Turkish and Ottoman Studies, organised in 1993, originates in the Laboratory of Turkish Studies which was founded in 1985 within the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest. Its purpose is to provide an institutional basis for the interdisciplinary research of the history and civilisation of the Turkish peoples, and their relations with the Romanian people. The centre gathers together not only staff and students of the University of Bucharest and of the Faculty of Archives of the A.I. Cuza Police Academy, but also researchers from the relevant Institutes of the Romanian Academy, specialists in museum studies, archivists and school teachers. The centre also has relations of collaboration with similar institutions abroad, which enable its members to carry out research and documentation in Turkey or other countries.

The activity of the centre includes a doctoral studies module provided by Professor Mihai Maxim (including advanced studies of the Turkish language and paleography), and the organisation of scholarly conferences. The two volumes of the Notebooks of the Turkish Studies Laboratory are being continued with the volume Romano-Turcica, which is currently in print.
The Centre for Turkish Studies has a base in the Faculty of History (room 7) with a library assembled through donations and publication exchanges, which currently contains about 1,500 volumes