A report by Professor Heaven Crawley, Director of the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University, has been highlighted by the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) as an example of good practice in ensuring academic research has an impact.
The report, entitled When is a child not a child? Asylum, age disputes and the process of age assessment, is highlighted in the RGS-IBG publication Communicating Geographical Research Beyond the Academy: A Guide for Researchers.
The guide brings together perspectives from academics and users of geographical research in government, business, education, schools and the media, to reflect on motives, means and methods; to stimulate discussion; and to illuminate examples of good practice.
Professor Crawley’s report, which was published in 2007 by the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA), provides detailed, evidence-based analysis of policy and practice relating to disputes as to the age of young asylum seekers and recommendations for improving the age assessment process.
The report, and the Nuffield Foundation-funded research on which it is based, is a response to growing evidence that the increase in age disputes is caused by a failure to follow Home Office policy of giving the benefit of the doubt about the age of separated asylum seeking children and of failures in the process of age assessment undertaken by social service departments.
In 2005, nearly half – 45 per cent – of all asylum applicants presenting as separated children were age disputed and treated as adults. Many of these disputes remain unresolved with implications for the Home Office, social services departments, legal representatives, voluntary sector practitioners and, most importantly, separated asylum seeking children themselves.
Professor Crawley said: “The concept of ‘evidence-based policy’ making has become something of a mantra within government circles. Within academia too, there is a growing emphasis on the relevance of research to so-called real-world issues and problems.
“Although this shift in emphasis is to be welcomed, the reality is that there is often a communication gap between academics and policy-makers who often have different motivations, objectives, methods and measures of success.
“This guide represents an attempt to grapple with some of these issues and to assist academics in communicating the findings of their research to a wider audience of politics makers, practitioners and the general public. This is a vital part of ensuring that our research has ‘an ‘impact’ on the policies and processes that we seek to influence.”
For more information on the RGS-IBG’s guide visit http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Research+and+Higher+Education/Communicating+Research.htm, and on the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University visit http://www.swansea.ac.uk/cmpr/.
