Nuno's research focusses on:

- Human Rights
- Discrimination Law
- European Law
- Children's Rights
- Asylum and Refugee Law

Nuno uses socio-legal, comparative, empirical and policy-oriented perspectives in his work. Nuno has published widely with top publishers and journals, and participated in several high-profile externally funded research projects.

Nuno's on-going research includes:

- children's welfare and development in the context of professional football (funded by ECRU and SLS - https://footballtalentuk.wordpress.com/);

- the effect of fundamental rights on relationships between private parties;

- the interaction between freedom of religion/thought/belief, private law, and dress codes;

- gender- and sexuality-based asylum claims (funded by a Horizon 2020 ERC Starting Grant / www.sogica.org and ESRC grant / https://iranqueerefugee.net/);

- protracted displacement (funded by an ERC project, TRAFIG - https://trafig.eu/).

For a recent book, see the 2025 'Queer Judgments'. This edited collection is the first output of the Queer Judgments project and the pages of this book re-imagine, re-write and re-invent judgments, from queer and other complementing perspectives. With an international reach and multi-disciplinary scope, this edited collection invites you to a queer dance through 26 judgments and commentaries.

For a recent journal article, see 'Adopting a rights lens to children’s training in football academies'. Underpinned by an empirical assessment of the English Premier League’s self-regulation on youth development matters, this article argues in favour of the need to adopt a rights-based approach to children’s involvement with football academies. Based on data gathered through almost 80 semi-structured interviews across England, the analysis concentrates on stakeholders’ awareness of children’s rights and how they influence football academies. The article concludes with policy recommendations to ameliorate the issues identified.



Research grants and main collaborations

(2022-2025) 'Negotiating Queer Identities Following Forced Migration (NQIfFM): A Comparative Study of Iranian Queer Refugees Living in Turkey, the UK and Canada', ESRC research grant (overall budget:GBP£445,902; Sussex budget: GBP 361,067). See https://iranqueerefugee.net/. 

(2021-) 'Queer Judgments Project' (global collaboration). See https://www.queerjudgments.org/.

(2019-2021) ‘TRAFIG - Transnational Figurations of Displacement: Connectivity and Mobility as Solutions to Protracted Refugee Situations’, Horizon 2020 consortium with BICC/Bonn as lead (overall budget: EUR 3,098,426.25; Sussex budget: EUR 236,748.75; individual budget: EUR 65,125). See https://trafig.eu/.

(2016-2020) ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum: A European human rights challenge (SOGICA)’, financed by a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant (EUR1,000,565). See www.sogica.org.

(2015-2016) ‘Creating a new University of Liverpool refugee studies interdisciplinary centre’, two-day event funded by the Interdisciplinary Network Funding of the University of Liverpool (GBP1,120).

(2014-) ‘Children in the world of football: A European rights-based approach to high-performance child footballers’, funded by the European Children’s Rights Unit of the University of Liverpool (ECRU) (GBP1,000) and the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) (GBP1,500). See https://footballtalentuk.wordpress.com/.

(2014-2017) Contributor to project ‘Children's Rights Judgments’. Results published in 2017 (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/rewriting-childrens-rights-judgments-9781509936885/).

(2012-2017) Contributor to Common Core of European Private Law/Trento Project on Immoral Contracts in Europe. Project funded by European Commission. Result published by Intersentia: https://intersentia.com/en/immoral-contracts-in-europe.html.

(2012) ‘The human face of the European Union: Humane enough?’, workshop co-funded by the Manchester Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (GBP1,000) and UACES - University Association for Contemporary European Studies (GBP655). Results published by CUP: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/law/european-law/human-face-european-union-are-eu-law-and-policy-humane-enough?format=HB.

(2010-2012) ‘The Reconceptualization of European Union Citizenship’, Multilateral Research Group including the University of Manchester, the Centre for Migration Law (Faculty of Law, Radboud University Nijmegen), and the Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid). Financed by the Jean Monnet / Lifelong Learning Programme (EUR80,000 / individual funding: EUR5,000). Individual contribution published here: https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/European+Public+Law/19.2/EURO2013023.

(2010-2011) Portuguese rapporteur for the project ‘Fleeing Homophobia, Seeking Safety in Europe: Best Practices on the (Legal) Position of LGBT Asylum Seekers in the EU Member States’, financed by the European Refugee Fund and coordinated by the VU University Amsterdam and the NGO COC Netherlands (EUR479,824 / individual funding: EUR5,500). Report available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4ebba7852.html

(2006) Grant from the German Research Foundation to present papers at two international conferences in Canada (EUR1,250).

(2005-2006) Contributor to Common Core of European Private Law/Trento Project on Personality Rights and Tort Law in Europe. Project funded by European Commission. Results published by CUP: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/law/european-law/personality-rights-european-tort-law?format=HB.

(2003–2006) Doctoral fellowship funded by the European Commission to work within the Research Training Network ‘Fundamental Rights and Private Law in the European Union’, co-ordinated by the Centre of European Law and Politics at the University of Bremen (ZERP) and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento ‘S. Anna’, Pisa (SSSUP) (EUR56,790).