IASC research roundtable with Cindy Dyer, the US Trafficking in Persons Ambassador

On 31 October, the IASC office convened UK modern slavery researchers and US Trafficking in Persons Ambassador Cindy Dyer to discuss progress in modern slavery research in the UK, knowledge and funding gaps that remain, and the relationship between research and policy change.  

Modern Slavery research has made significant progress since the Centre for Social Justice’s report 'It Happens Here' helped instigate the passing of the Modern Slavery Act in 2015. From breakthroughs in technology – using satellite imagery to detect forced labour and machine learning to analyse online child exploitation – to innovation in tracking prevalence of modern slavery and evaluating the impact of interventions. And greater efforts have been made to meaningfully incorporate survivor voices into research and policy design. 

Challenges remain in ensuring that research can meaningfully contribute to fast-moving policy agendas, improving data collation and researchers access to it, and with short-term funding limiting the depth and longevity of studies.  

To address this, IASC is advocating for strong funding mechanisms for research, promoting the integration of lived experience into research, policy, and practice, and working to ensure that research is visible, accessible, and acted on by Government. To achieve this, IASC will foster collaboration between researchers, NGOs and government to ensure insights from the frontline, are analysed with academic rigour, and meaningfully influence policy. 

Together, we can build a system where evidence-based, survivor-centre policies are driving the UK’s response to modern slavery.