Negotiating the Challenges and Opportunities For Shaping Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice in a Collaborative University and Policing Partnership

• In Event: Roundtable: Drawing Lessons and Learning From a Merseyside Based Police Service and University Co-Production Research Partnership

Abstract

The presentation here will reflect on the experience of negotiating, creating, and operating the model of research co-production that underpins the Police Knowledge Fund Project. It will explore the challenges and opportunities of facilitating learning and knowledge exchange between University-based researchers and practice focused officers with an enduring commitment to deliver a public service. It will report on the scope for practitioners to engage with academics from a range of inter-disciplinary backgrounds (Criminal Justice, Criminology, Cyber-Security, Data Analytics) to develop practice-based research that positively shapes practice.
Beyond offering a commentary on the routine operational experience of the project, the presentation will explore the capacity of police organisations, through engaging in research, to show leadership and purpose in proactively engaging with emergent and dynamic offending behaviours. For police leaders engaging with, and managing locally, an operational shift towards evidence-informed policing being driven at a national level the challenge is to mobilise the strengths of their staff to develop new ideas and new ways of shaping the evidence base. Reflecting on emerging lessons from the project model here helps inform a better understanding of the scope for serving police officers to contribute to the process of embedding of evidence-based practice within policing.

Author

• Matthew Millings, Liverpool John Moores University