Her role involves contributing to the on-going development of and leading on the implementation of a scholarly communications strategy at the British Library, providing support and training in relevant topics, and engaging with the wider community on behalf of the library.

She has an MA in library science and an MBA. Previously, she worked at the Koc University and Ozyegin University Libraries in Turkiye, and served as a library director for over four years. During those years, she carried out several roles in different groups at the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS) including open access group and the licensing group as well as the steering committee. From 2016 to October 2021, Ilkay worked as a consultant and involved in several projects at the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. She is a founding member of Creative Commons Turkey and have been active in the CC Global Network since 2015, representing CC Turkiye Chapter. Currently, she is a Steering Committee Member at Open Repositories, member of Open Research Competencies Coalition (ORCC) and coordinates activities of the Cultural Heritage Open Scholarship Network (CHOSN) activities at the British Library.