EMPAC’s new Knowledge Exchange Manager is John Coxhead, an inspector from Derbyshire Constabulary. John joins Dave Hill from Northampton to create the EMPAC core team.
John has served with Derbyshire for 27 years, working in both urban and rural areas. He has most recently moved to his EMPAC secondment from reactive response at north BCU, based at Chesterfield.
As well as operational policing experience, John has extensive experience in Learning and Development. John achieved two Queen’s Awards for Innovation in Police Learning and Development, gained from training cohorts of new officers and more specialised courses in leadership and performance. He worked across the whole spectrum of L & D, from learning needs to design, through to delivery and evaluation, as well as working for HMIC on Learning & Development thematic reviews.
John joined Derbyshire straight after graduating from Keele University and returned to Keele to complete a research masters in Criminology before undertaking a doctorate researching the link between policing learning and development and workplace performance. Later came post doctoral applied research with Lancaster University and the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency, on serious organised crime profiling. Then work on community cohesion with the Strategic Police Matters Unit (who have a Pan European remit and are based in Vienna as part of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), rounded off his research training and brought publications. John was appointed Honorary Associate Professor at De Montfort University, progressing to Professorships at Keele and Loughborough Universities, as well as becoming the external examiner at Sheffield Hallam and Manchester Metropolitan Universities.
Now busily moving about the East Midlands meeting EMPAC’s workstream leads, John is keen to develop the interaction between operational police personnel and researchers and encourage joint work. Understanding both worlds of policing and research, the task is to bring these two important professions together for mutual benefit.
“A lot of my professional experience has come together in this new posting for me. As well as my time in core reactive and local policing, I’ve had a lot of experience in all aspects of policing learning and development, done lots in community safety partnerships, been involved in strategic intelligence development, worked in multi-agency settings and worked on serious organised crime. Academically, as well as publishing I’ve been active in all sorts of teaching and research for over 20 years, writing modules, marking, lecturing across a whole range of universities. I’ve kept my hand in teaching and supervising on doctoral programmes, which is what I enjoy most. So I now have the chance to work across both professions which is great!”.
John sees huge potential in EMPAC. “I’d like to see operational police staff working with academic researchers together as a joint team as business as usual. There is so much potential of joining up the expertise from police and researchers, who both have lots to offer, but get even more by working jointly.”
“EMPAC brings together the five East Midlands forces, which already have a national reputation for delivering value added collaboration, with seven regional universities and a massive skill set. It’s really got a world class level of people, skills and ideas in there and we can build on this through joint working.”
When asked how knowledge exchange could help EMPAC he explains, “the key thing is utilising the talent we have. Getting operational leads working with researchers means we can develop applied research that puts the East Midlands really at the top for cutting edge development. That means better efficiences, better knowledge, better informed decisions, better innovation, increased professionalism – better policing to fight crime and protect the public.”
“Criminals have always been entrepreneurial but our research collaboration will add so much insight into current and emerging criminality, really putting us on the front foot. The research scanning capacity we now have with our regional universities means we can look right across the world for the best policing ideas and seek to build applications for them right here in the East Midlands.”
“The best way perhaps of describing the ‘day job’ is acting as regional partnership manager between the priorities set by policing chief officers and the University research sector with a view to enhancing proactive policing capacity and capability to improve policing. That includes using research as an additional asset to help deliver strategic intelligence requirements, helping evaluate ‘what works’ and driving innovative thinking.”
The ongoing practical priority though is about ensuring research is operationally relevant – and there are several events planned across the region to bring practitioners and researchers together to ensure research passes the ‘reality test’. See the EMPAC web site for the range of forthcoming events lined up.
John can be reached on 07470 181050 and john.coxhead@empac.org.uk.
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