Commentary: Enhancing Immigration Policy Through Research

This commentary is about the ways in which research can enhance policy making. It opens with a broad discussion of the relationship between research and policy as many have traditionally conceived it, often through the metaphor of a policy cycle into which research is inserted at various points of the cycle. The idea of a policy cycle regards the relationship between research and policy in epistemic terms and arguably represents not a description of how policy is in fact made but stands as a rational reconstruction of the policy process. From here, we move to a more socio-psychological approach to how policy is made and how it is that research is used. Flowing from this, I offer ideas for how researchers can establish effective working relations with policy makers, especially those in governments. In the second half of the paper, some of these ideas are illustrated through the Metropolis Project with a focus on its deployment in Canada, which attempted several innovations in this regard, followed by some reflections on the International Metropolis Project.