Başak Yavcan is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Turkey, where she heads an interdisciplinary graduate program on Migration Studies. She is also a Senior Researcher at the Hugo Observatory of Environment Migration and Politics, University of Liège. She holds a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, Department of Political Science, has conducted research at Michigan University’s Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, at New York University and at the Northwestern University Buffett Institute’s Keyman Modern Turkish Studies.
Yavçan's research focuses on inter-group relations and public opinion, in particular regarding refugee integration, impact of immigration attitudes on Euroscepticism, immigrant acculturation attitudes and structural and environmental drivers of migration. She has worked extensively on the integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey, with a particular focus on inter-group attitudes, employment, institutional trust, Islamic radicalization, effectiveness of local and national policies and interventions on promoting cohesion. Yavçan has conducted field research in various countries as part of national and international grant schemes, using both quantitative and qualitative methods including surveys, experiments, focus groups, in-depth interviews and content analyses and her resulting work has been published in a number of journals including Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Journal of Communication, Turkish Studies, books and policy reports for international institutions such as UNESCO, ICMPD, Care International, and GIZ.