Sofia Vasilopoulou joined the Department of European and International Studies in May 2022 as a Professor of European Politics. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of York, where she previously worked (2011-2022).

She is an elected executive committee member of the European Consortium for Political Research and a member of the Editorial Board of South European Society and Politics (2025 -) and the European Journal of Political Research (2026-). She was Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Political Research (2018-2024).

She has held a visiting research fellowship at the University of Zurich (2014). She has worked at University College London and Aston University (2010-2011). She received her PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2011.

Office hours

By appointment.

Research

Sofia studies the causes and consequences of political dissatisfaction among the public and the ways in which this is channelled through party strategies and party competition. She has published extensively in the fields of electoral politics, public opinion and party politics. The findings of her research feed into debates about democratic legitimacy, accountability and representation in Europe and the European Union.

For more info, see https://www.sofiavasilopoulou.com/

Google Scholar profile

Current projects

PI: ERC-funded INEQCHANGE project on ‘Sub-national economic inequalities and electoral change in Europe’.

Co-PI: Horizon Europe EDGE project on ‘Enhancing Democratic Support under Conditions of Geographic and Intersectional Inequalities in Europe’. Read more about the project here.

Vice-Chair: COST Action project Linking Euroscepticism and Populism (CA23102).

Member of the international team: EU-ATLAS: Attitudes Toward a Geopolitical European Union: Loyalty And Support in a Comparative Perspective, Spanish State Research Agency.

She is the lead author of the European Commission Joint Research Centre’s ‘Future of democracy’ project.

Teaching

• Introduction to politics
• Far right politics in Europe and beyond
• Democratic legitimacy of international co-operation.

PhD supervision

Sofia has supervised several PhD students to completion. She welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:

• Inequality and democratic support
• Elections, voters and parties
• Backlash against international cooperation, including Euroscepticism, anti-globalisation, and anti-trade politics.
• Far right politics