Research and Practice Dialogues on Complex Protection Claims – A 'Translational' Agenda

In this editorial, we consider how practitioners and academics working in the field of UK immigration, asylum and nationality law can cooperate more closely to achieve a shared goal: ensuring access to justice for asylum-seekers, refugees and other migrants. This project starts from the existing division and separateness that characterises today’s legal research and legal practice in key areas in the field. The need for a more structured engagement and fruitful conversation between the two cohorts animates this Special Issue. The contributions herein aim to spark debate, constructive dialogue and cooperation regarding matters of capital importance to the rights and realities of international protection applicants, and chart new terrain indicating a common direction for legal research and legal practice. The ambition is for each to relate to one another in more productive ways, with the purpose to more coherently develop the field and achieve the common goal of ensuring better access to justice. This Special Issue is, thus, conceived of as a channel of communication between the two communities, as a first step towards a collective culture of dialogue and mutual learning on complex protection claims. Our objective is to jointly lay the foundations of a two-way ‘translational’ agenda, whereby practicesensitive legal academic research translates into effective legal casework and academically informed legal practice contributes to transformative change at systemic level.