About CORI

CORI is an independent centre providing specialist research and training on COI to support refugee status determination (RSD).

CORI works internationally with all parties to RSD including Governments, lnter-governmental bodies , NGO's and Legal Representatives. We provide commissioned reports and knowledge management services and work to raise standards of COI production and application through capacity building and bespoke training.

We provide the following services;

  • Case Specific Research and Court Ready Research Bundles

  • Country and Thematic Research Analysis and Reports

  • International Consultancy and Training

  • Knowledge and Information Management
  • Capacity Building


CORI’s Director, Bethany Collier, is the author of ‘Country of Origin Information and Women: Researching gender and persecution in the context of asylum and human rights claims’, Asylum Aid, London, 2007. 

She has worked as a COI researcher for over 8 years, as Country Information Officer at Asylum Aid she ran an Information Centre on women’s human rights providing research and  COI training services to legal representatives and refugee women. Bethany has delivered training to European Government and NGO researchers and has produced policy documents for European consultations.  She has provided international consultancy on the production and application of COI.

Bethany founded the COI Practitioners Forum and  sat as an Observer to the Advisory Panel on Country Information as a gender specialist.  She has worked with international research and information providers, Electronic Immigration Network/HJT and the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin Information and Asylum Research, to improve access and availability of human rights resources relating to women.

Advisory Boards
Bethany is a member of the Advisory Panel for the Immigration Advisory Service’s project ‘Improving the use of country information in asylum advice and representation’.

Country Information and Research Centre (CIREC) is an independent organisation based in Switzerland.  CIREC works to promote professional standards for research and its application within the Swiss legal system.  Bethany is a member of CIREC's scientific board.

Recent Consultancy Commissions

Danish Refugee Council/Ukrainian State Committee for Nationality and Religions

CORI's Director was commissioned as an International COI Expert by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) to set up a COI Unit for the Ukrainian authorities. This forms part of the DRC project ‘Strengthening Asylum and Protection Capacity in Ukraine by Enhancing the Capacity of Governmental and Civil Society Stakeholders in a Participatory Approach and Cross-sector Co-operation’.  During the four week consultancy CORI developed an infrastructure, operations manual, template forms, referal system, database and provided training to research staff.

UNHCR

CORI is commissioned by UNHCR Protection Directorate to produce COI research reports on thematic issues.  The research analyses are published on UNHCR's Refworld and in CORI's Information Centre.

Austrian Red Cross/Austrian Centre for Country of Origin & Asylum Research and Documentation (ACCORD)

CORI wrote an extensive consultation paper on mainstreaming gender within a web based research database used by legal representatives internationally in preparing asylum and human rights claims.