This is the project website for “Go Home”: Mapping the unfolding controversy of Home Office immigration campaigns, an 18  month research project that explores the impacts on local communities and national debate of current publicity campaigns about migration by the UK Home Office.

Our detailed project findings were published in June 2015 at the end of the funded part of the project, and a book based on the project was published in March 2017 by Manchester University Press. We continue to write on findings from the project, and the website will continue to be updated to reflect this.

The project was supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and by support in kind from four national civil society partners. The research was conducted by academic researchers from seven UK universities, in conjunction with local community organisations.

The research project set out to:

• document and describe the current wave of high-profile Home Office campaigns against irregular immigration, in six local areas of the UK and at a national level
• identify the impacts of government migration policy and its communication, and their real-time interaction with public debate and civic mobilisations, in six local areas of the UK and at a national level
• produce real-time analysis and findings that intervene in debates and inform community action and policy formation
• evaluate the impact of our own interventions, in real time
• produce research that is of value to civil society organisations, both in terms of outputs (evidence, analysis and a toolkit for urgent activist research) and participation in the research process (enhancing networks and skills)
• develop new methodologies that enable a specific focus on the links between digital, face-to-face and ‘traditional’ communications and policy channels
• evaluate the effectiveness of the research and dissemination methodologies used in the project, in real time
• explore longer term collaborative outputs and funding which enhance the impact of this urgent research intervention.

This website will be updated as the project progresses, with information on emerging findings and the process of the research. You can also follow the project’s Twitter account, @micresearch