NEXUS-Y: Nexus of Youth and Stigma Politics: Identity, Relational Roles and Participation (2026-2029) / Principal Investigator
This project investigates how the routine construction of threatening out-groups for political gains reshapes young people’s identities, sense of belonging, and participation practices in civic and political life. It focuses on youth aged 15- 29 in Italy, Spain, and Turkey. It centres on three issues/groups often targeted by stigma politics: migrants/refugees, Roma/Sinti, and LGBTQ+ youth as paradigmatic cases to study the stigma politics-youth participation nexus.
Funded by Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI), Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology
Grant amount: € 92,625
De-Appeal: Deconstruct and Resist Autocratic Appeal to Reinvigorate Democracy (2026-2029) / WP leader
The project is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary programme to explain why autocratic projects gain traction and to identify the individual, societal and institutional conditions under which democratic appeal can be revived and mobilised.
Funded by European Commission, Programme Horizon Europe, GA nº 101289057
Grant amount: € 3.5 million
REACH: Reshaping Attitudes about Refugees and
Gender Minorities in Spain and Portugal (2025-2027) / Principal Investigator
The project aims to develop human rights-based public narratives about refugees and gender minorities in Spain and Portugal. Our goal is to provide stakeholders with empirically tested narratives to initiate constructive dialogues with their target audiences and counter the growing influence of the far-right in shaping public attitudes.
Funded by La Caixa Foundation Social Research Call
Grant amount: € 114,995
MITIME: Entanglements of Migration and Time in Post-industrial Urban Europe (2026-2029) / Supervisor
MITIME is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network focusing on how time shapes migration, inequality, and urban life in post-industrial Europe. The network aims to train 15 doctoral researchers across 7 participating universities.
Funded by Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Program
Grant amount: € 4.4 million
RESONATE: Designing Resonant Frames: How to Effectively Communicate about the Rights and Inclusion of Immigrants and Refugees (2022-2024) / Principal Investigator
The project explored how Turkey’s nascent immigrant and refugee rights movement operates. It combined novel research methods with insights from sociology, communication studies, and political science to map the network and capacities of the growing movement.
Funded by Horizon 2020, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship
Grant amount: € 269,000
CRAFT: Politicisation of Civil Society and the Judiciary in Turkey (2019-2021) / Principal Investigator
This research project investigated the lasting repercussions of the politicisation of nonpartisan institutions on state-society relations with an aim to explain how authoritarian governance takes root at institutional, civic and societal levels. Grounded in case study design, the project focused on 3 major issues: (1) dependent-CSOs and politicised associational sphere (2) a systematic measure of to what extent high courts’ judicial output reflects the incumbent’s interests and other non-legal variables (3) the implications of politicised judiciary and civil society on the EU-Turkey relations
Funded by Horizon Europe Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Fellowship
Grant Amount: € 178,157
Open Society Fellowship – Human Rights Cohort (2018-2019) / Principal Investigator
The project investigated how and why the associational sphere expanded amid a broad crackdown on the freedom of expression, association, and assembly in Turkey. It also researched the transformation of civil society and partisan mobilisation during the autocratisation process within the diasporic space.
Funded by Open Society Foundations
Grant amount: $99,250
Swedish Institute Fellowship (2017) / Principal Investigator
This project analyzed the link between government-dependent civil society in Turkey and the bottom-up consolidation of authoritarian rule in Turkey. Based on grounded research and multi-sited fieldwork design, it investigated (a) the trajectory of the emergence of dependent CSOs, (b) their interaction with society/target groups and the government, and (c) their impact on the nature and role of civic pluralism.
Funded by Swedish Institute
Grant amount: SEK 216,000
BİLGE YABANCI 