Yongcan's research interests lie in community/heritage language education and multilingualism. He has a long-standing interest in combining linguistic and social analysis in researching language, education and migration. His recent research projects focus on language development, social integration and educational achievement of bilingual children with an immigrant background. Yongcan is founding convenor of Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network (CRiCLE-Net), a research initiative looking at how immigrant communities strive to preserve their languages in the home, school and community in transnational migration contexts.