[2] Phipps' specialisms are wide-ranging and inter-disciplinary, covering refugees, asylum and migration, educating in the social sciences, multilingualism and tourism and communications for peace, while maintaining a broader interests in language learning and teaching, faith studies and ethnography.
[2] She was given the Order of the British Empire (2012) for services to education, intercultural and interreligious relations and elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2015).
In 2015, she led a 5-day fact-finding group of UK Parliament Home Affairs and Justice Select Committee to refugee camps in Dunkirk and Calais, France.
She has used drama and inter-cultural methods including observation and engagement with diverse people in research programmes in the US, Europe, Australasia, the Caribbean and Africa.
'[9]In 2021, following the damage of the Scottish Crannog Centre, in a fire,[10] Phipps and UNESCO Chair artist in residence Tawona Sitole wrote of the tears of the 'improvisors, working out how their forebears might have made shelters, might have lived' and the healing properties of working together to re-create their past, in weaving together Soay sheep wool - without language yet a 'thousand touches and a thousand voices'.
Sitole travelled 8000.1 miles from Waterfalls, Harare, Zimbabwe to come there, but relates to a similarity of life in ancient Scotland with African ancestral lives which will 'create a deeper connection' globally and offer 'potent ways of healing'.
[11] Phipps took part in the RSE 'Curious' 2021 programme[12] of public online events under the broad title of 'insights from some of the world's leading experts on health and well-being, innovation and invention, our planet and COVID-19', for which she co-hosted a discussion on changing the UK's asylum system; her image appeared in the National newspaper's 'Picture of the day' with the "Curious" logo .
[16] Phipps was also highly critical of the UK's 'evil' immigration policy after 27 refugees died attempting to cross the English Channel in an unsuitable boat in November 2021.