EMPAC is all about growing stronger, mutually beneficial links between research and policing professional practice, so to encourage practitioners to get get hands-on with research, we created a Fellowship programme as a stimulus. The programme was a great success, receiving noteworthy praise from the College of Policing in its Police Knowledge Fund evaluation.
EMPAC recruited a number of Fellows: professional practitioners who alongside their day job also take an active interest in pursuing research, with some following a formally accredited programme.
Our very first Fellow was DC Amy Rutland, who researched modern slavery and human trafficking at Loughborough University – you can see her discussing her research here: https://empac.org.uk/video-empac-fellowship-modern-slavery/.
Amy was closely followed by a growing number of researcher-practitioners (some use the term ‘pracademic’) and you can see more of them talk about their varied research in short video clips here:- https://empac.org.uk/spotlight-empac-fellows/.
EMPAC worked with a number of Universities to encourage practitioners to take up research and get qualified in the process. For example, Dr Becky Thompson, senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, led the development of a very successful new post graduate research qualification tailored to policing professionals.
Several EMPAC Fellows’s work have been showcased not only on our EMPAC web but also in Police Professional, the UK’s biggest selling policing publication. Alongside that media promotion, three Fellows also presented their work at the Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology.
EMPAC continues to promote practitioner research and you can find materials to introduce practitioners to research in our Learning and Resources section:- https://empac.org.uk/learning-centre-categories/how-to-do-research/
In the main picture (L – R) are Dr Becky Thompson (NTU), alongside three EMPAC Fellows – Mohit Behl and Elizabeth Perry (both of Leicestershire Police) and Alex Paradise (of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit -EMSOU).
Comments