Napier University to be home of Scotland's Policing Academic Centre of Excellence
The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has announced that nine new P-ACEs will launch across the UK in October 2025, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
As the host of SIPR, Edinburgh Napier will lead the Scottish P-ACE, with the collaboration of partner institutions Glasgow Caledonian University, the University of Edinburgh and the University of St Andrews.
Backed by £4.5m in funding and working with police services across the UK, the Centres of Excellence will aim to ensure that policing is shaped by the latest and best scientific expertise, and that leading researchers are able to challenge and innovate in partnership with policing. The P-ACEs will support police with adopting new technologies, developing new tools and techniques, improving training and skills, and increasing public safety.
The ENU-based centre will be entitled SPACE – the Scottish Policing Academic Centre for Excellence. The name also links its key research themes, each of which is critical to modern policing: safety, prevention, analytics, confidence and ethics.
Today's announcement will allow SIPR to distribute £300k to support new research and knowledge exchange activity in Scotland over the next three years, in line with these key areas of research interest.
Professor Liz Aston Professor of Criminology at Edinburgh Napier University, SPACE Lead and Director of SIPR, said: 'We are delighted to have been recognised as a Policing Academic Centre of Excellence. The collaborative nature of SIPR between its member institutions has made this achievement possible.
'Not only does this recognition cement SIPR's reputation, but it will also increase the reach of our work and help to drive innovation in policing.
'I'm really looking forward to leading SPACE from Edinburgh Napier University with the co-leads. By working with the NPCC and other partners in Scotland over the coming years, we will create evidence-based innovations to improve safety and prevent harm.'
Professor Paul Taylor, Police Chief Scientific Adviser, said: 'Academia and policing have a long history of collaborative working on issues as diverse as forensic science, crime prevention, and analytical technologies.
'The P-ACEs will fortify this connection, providing a focal point for research and knowledge exchange.
'I'm particularly excited about what the P-ACEs can bring to early career scientists who are interested in tackling the complex challenge of keeping the UK public safe. The P-ACE community will, I hope, provide them more opportunities and greater support as we look to forge deep and lasting partnerships over the next decade.'
Led by Professor Liz Aston and involving experts from across the SIPR member institutions, SPACE will work across three main themes:
Safety, led by Dr Andrew Wooff, Edinburgh Napier University and co-lead for the SIPR Organisational Development Network. This builds on ENU's reputation for impactful policing research linked to safety, including the award-winning study into Police Scotland's use of naloxone.
Prevention, led by Dr Sarah Marsden, University of St Andrews and Professor Lesley McMillan, Glasgow Caledonian University. Dr Marsden is Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, while Professor McMillan,a renowned expert on gender-based violence, is director of the Scottish Cold Case Unit at GCU.
Analytics, led by Professor Susan McVie, University of Edinburgh, will work in partnership with Police Scotland and the Scottish Prevention Hub. This area will bring together a network of academics who will use data driven innovation and AI-based solutions to support operational practice and policy decision making.
In addition, Confidence and Ethics will shape all of SPACE's academic work and builds on developments including the independent review of emerging technologies in policing.
SIPR itself is a strategic collaboration between member universities, Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority.
It has helped to forge strong links between policing and the academia, as recently shown in the ENU-hosted Neurodiversity and Policing conference.
Like this:
Like
Related
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
13 hours ago
- Telegraph
SpaceX delivers astronauts to space station on express flight
SpaceX has delivered a new crew of astronauts to the International Space Station, making the journey in just 15 hours. The four astronauts, from America, Russia and Japan, arrived at the ISS after launching from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre. They will spend around six months orbiting the lab, simulating moon-landing scenarios and testing how gravity shifts affect their ability to pilot spacecraft. Moving into the space station are Nasa's Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan's Kimiya Yui and Russia's Oleg Platonov, replacing four astronauts who have been up there since March. 'Hello, space station!' Mr Fincke radioed as the capsule docked high above the South Pacific. 'We have cold drinks, hot food, and us waiting – see you soon,' the ISS crew told the new arrivals shortly after contact. Their flight to the ISS was speedy by US standards, though the Russians hold the record for the fastest trip – three hours. Their arrival means there will be 11 members temporarily living on the space station. Continuously inhabited since 2000, the ISS functions as a test bed for research that supports deeper space exploration, including future missions to Mars. As part of their stay, the Crew-11 astronauts will simulate moon landing scenarios that could be encountered near the lunar South Pole under the US-led Artemis programme. Using handheld controllers and multiple display screens, they will also test how shifts in gravity affect astronauts' ability to pilot spacecraft. Among Crew-11's more colourful cargo items are Armenian pomegranate seeds, which will be compared to a control batch kept on Earth to study how microgravity influences crop growth. The ISS is set to be decommissioned after 2030, with its orbit gradually lowered until it breaks up in the atmosphere over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft graveyard. All four of the astronauts were not originally pencilled in for this mission. Ms Cardman was pulled from another SpaceX flight last year to make room for two Nasa astronauts – Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – whose stay at the space station lasted nine months instead of a week. Mr Fincke and Mr Yui had originally been training for the next Boeing Starliner mission, which has been grounded by thruster problems until 2026. Mr Platonov was originally scheduled to join the Soyuz launch lineup a few years ago before dropped out due to illness.
The Sun
15 hours ago
- The Sun
Watch monstrous black hole GOBBLE up a star before Earth-shattering explosion in incredible new Nasa clip
WATCH the shocking moment a rare black whole gobbles up a star and causes an earth-shattering explosion in a stunning new Nasa clip. Astronomers have created an extraordinary animation after detecting what they believe to be an extremely rare type of "missing link" black hole shredding a distant star. 5 The animation shows the rare moment that the suspected intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) HLX-1 ripped apart the star, triggering the almighty explosion. Black holes come in a range of sizes, but can be up to 40 billion times bigger than the Sun, Live Science reports. According to Live Science, IMBHs are hard to spot and often confused with clusters of smaller black holes left over from collapsed stars. Researches also think they may hide behind small groups of stars that closely orbit them without being ripped apart. Therefore, the best way to spot an IMBH is indirectly, by measuring the masses of merging black holes or by catching them in the act consuming a star. In a study published April 11 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers reported that they'd spotted another promising IMBH candidate, located more than 450 million light-years from Earth. By combining data from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA 's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the study team believes they have spotted a bright flash, or "tidal disruption event," caused by the black hole devouring a neighbouring star. However, as with many other IMBH candidates, it is not 100% certain that HLX-1 is real. In addition to being rare, IMBHs are important because of what they can tell us about other black holes. Yi-Chi Chang, a researcher at the National Tsing Hua University, said: "They represent a crucial missing link in black hole evolution between stellar mass and supermassive black holes." UK-led plan to build hypersonic plane that flies on edge of space at 4,000mph going from London to NYC in 60mins One theory is that they may start as large stellar-mass black holes and eventually grow into supermassive black holes over the course of billions of years. In a search for answers, astronomers are now on the lookout for more potential tidal disruption events on the edges of other galaxies. 5 5 5
Reuters
a day ago
- Reuters
SpaceX launches joint astronaut crew to ISS in NASA's Crew-11 mission
WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, beating gloomy weather to embark on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual. The four-person astronaut crew - two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and Japanese astronaut - boarded SpaceX's Dragon capsule sitting atop its Falcon 9 rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and blasted off at 11:43 am ET (1543 GMT). They will arrive at the ISS on Saturday.
