Davies, Chantal, Ferreira, Nuno, Morris, Anne and Morris, Debra (2016) Editorial: The Equality Act 2010: five-years on. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, Vol 16(2-3), 61-65

‘The Equality Act 2010: five years on’ conference was organized as a collaboration between the Forum for Research into Equality and Diversity (University of Chester) and the School of Law and Social Justice (University of Liverpool). The Equality Act 2010 has arguably been one of the most important and challenging pieces of legislation introduced in the last decade in the United Kingdom. As such, it was felt that the 5-year anniversary of its implementation provided an excellent opportunity to bring together those researching and practising in this area of law. In particular, the conference was intended to provide the opportunity for a review of the implications and impact of the legislation during this period, but also to consider the way in which it can continue to promote equality and protect against discrimination into the 21st century. As organizers, we were keen to focus the themes of the conference around the broad range of socio-legal study taking place across the United Kingdom in relation to the Equality Act 2010. While many conferences have focussed on the implications of the legislation for practitioners and wider exploration of equality across a variety of sectors, it was felt that there were few academic gatherings permitting researchers to explore the impact of the Equality Act from a socio-legal perspective. Contributors were invited to submit papers and poster presentations across a range of themes around the legislation including, but not limited to, the public sector equality duty, intersectionality, positive action, strategic enforcement, hierarchy of protected characteristics, education, etc. The quality and range of papers and posters submitted and presented at the conference exceeded expectations. As had been hoped, the variety of socio-legal study being carried out across the United Kingdom around the Equality Act was exceptional. The conference, therefore, provided the space and opportunity to come together to explore the implications of this work and to build upon existing dialogues and networks in order to provide a better connected and less isolated evidential basis for the future development of the legislation. The collection of articles within this publication is an excellent representation of some of the themes explored at the conference. We are very grateful to the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law for providing the opportunity to expand the dialogue around the socio-legal implications of the Equality Act 2010 beyond the conference via this special edition.