Volkan Yilmaz

I am a Lecturer in Social Policy at Ulster University, Belfast, within the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences.

I serve as one of the editors for the Journal of Social Policy and co-coordinate the Sociology of Social Policy and Social Welfare Research Network (RN26) of the European Sociological Association. I participate in the WHO Advisory Group on the Governance of the Private Sector for Universal Health Coverage. Additionally, I serve as a member of the Centre for Public Administration at Ulster University. I am also an associate editor, focusing on Social Policy, for New Perspectives on Turkey.

My previous roles include serving as the Director of the Social Policy Forum Research Centre in Istanbul and leading the taught postgraduate program in Social Policy at Bogazici University from 2016 to 2021. I have also contributed to Dublin City University’s master's program in Public Policy by teaching various Public Policy modules and worked as an assistant professor and researcher as part of Istanbul Bilgi University’s Centre for Civil Society Studies. I have been a visiting researcher at King’s College London, the University of Bristol, and Fondation Brocher.

At Ulster University, my responsibilities include serving as a Year 1 tutor for Social Policy undergraduates, where I support and guide students through their initial academic journey in the field. Additionally, I participate in the Faculty Sustainability Working Group within the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, working to promote and integrate sustainability practices across the faculty’s operations and initiatives.

My research interests encompass a wide range of topics, including the politics of social policies, public policy, global social policy, health policy, humanitarian assistance, and the relationship between human rights and social policy (with a special focus on disability, gender equality, sexual orientation and gender identity).

I am a qualitative researcher with a mixed methods orientation. I employ a diverse range of data collection techniques to explore social policy issues. My data collection methods include surveys, public spending data, and observational data from social media and forums. Additionally, I conduct focus groups and in-depth interviews to delve into participants' attitudes and experiences, providing rich, contextual insights.

For data analysis, I utilise contextual analysis to understand the broader socio-political environment, the Narrative Policy Framework to interpret policy narratives, and political discourse analysis to examine the language and power dynamics in policy discussions. 

I am interested in supervising PhD researchers who intend to work on any of these themes:

• Explore the mechanisms and implications of private sector involvement in health policy-making and change, with a focus on Universal Health Coverage reforms and initiatives.
• Examine the political dynamics driving social policy changes in middle-income countries, specifically focusing on the Central Asia and Caucasus region and Western Balkans.
• Investigate the interplay between humanitarian assistance programmes and social policies (including social protection).
• Explore the influence of the European Union on health, with a specific emphasis on the European Health Union initiative.
• Conduct comparative studies on health policy and politics in both Ireland and Northern Ireland.