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Edinburgh Reporter
07-05-2025
- Science
- Edinburgh Reporter
Napier University to be home of Scotland's Policing Academic Centre of Excellence
Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) will be the home of Scotland's only Policing Academic Centre of Excellence (P-ACE), building on its success of hosting the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR). 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
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Veterans are roasting top Trump officials over their Signal group chat
Military social media is buzzing with memes about officials' use (or misuse) of Signal. Trump officials mistakenly added a journalist to a Signal chat on military operations. The Pentagon recently warned against using Signal due to hacking concerns. Is the cure to male loneliness… starting a group text to bomb the Houthis? That's one of the sarcastic questions posed in memes blowing up across military-focused social media after top Trump officials used Signal to discuss airstrikes against Yemen's Houthi militants — an operational security violation, or OPSEC, almost certain to be career-ending or worse for a rank-and-file soldier. Vice President JD Vance, Trump's national security advisor Mike Waltz, and other top officials debated whether to strike Yemen in a group chat that mistakenly included Jeffery Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who reported on the chaotic exchange. Goldberg reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared an attack plan, including the names of those being targeted, before the airstrikes on the encrypted app — raising concerns this practice could spoil the operation or endanger troops. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "there was no classified information as I understand it," and Waltz added, "We have our legal teams looking at it." Signal has been widely used for years throughout lower military levels for communication. But even junior troops with access to top-secret materials, which could include pending missile strikes, have long known that communicating such sensitive details should only be done via government-provided secure lines, like SIPR (secure internet protocol router) email or phone, making the message exchange an intelligence gaffe of preposterous proportions. The founder of Signal, Moxie Marlinspike, mocked the spillage. "Now including the opportunity for the vice president of the United States of America to randomly add you to a group chat for coordination of sensitive military operations," he wrote in a post on X Monday. Likely because of Signal's popularity, the Pentagon released new guidance last week discouraging the app's use even for everyday communications, NPR reported Tuesday. According to the memo NPR cites, "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations," the guidance read. "The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information." The memo was dated March 18, one week after the baffling Houthi chat began. Memes circulating online poke fun at Hegseth, Vance, Waltz, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, all military veterans who presumably had to undergo annual cyber awareness while serving. Many memes and users pondered whether the entire military would be required to brush up on OPSEC (operational security) classes and ask if the adage "different spanks for different ranks," will continue to hold true. Former CIA operations officer John Sipher called the move "worse tha[n] amateur" in a post on BlueSky. "It 100% provides Moscow information on US capabilities and personalities. Information they can use down the line or share with Iran — the Houthi enablers. It may provide ongoing access to some participants." "Member when all we had to worry about was some S2 dork bringing his cellphone into the scif?" asked one commenter, referring to personnel in ultra-secure areas known as sensitive compartmented information facilities. "Pepperidge farms remembers." "Text STOP to unsubscribe from war plan updates," read another. "Somewhere a US Army counterintelligence agent is having a minor breakdown over how he has a perfect new case study for his annual OPSEC brief but he won't be able to use it for at least four years," read yet another BlueSky post. It's unclear if Waltz, Hegseth, and other top leaders must take the same cyber awareness training that the rank and file are required to complete annually. Read the original article on Business Insider
