News & Events
Creative Methods as Research - Workshop
This workshop invites papers that explore the contributions of creative methods to the study of courts and policing. The workshop seeks to convene a transnational dialogue that bridges academic research, artistic practice and community engagement. We focus on creative methods as research, i.e., as modes of knowledge production, rather than dissemination alone. We pose three provocations that contributors may wish to address: collaborations and/or co-creations; emotions; ethics.
The workshop will take place over two days, 11-12 September 2025, in the Scarman Conference Centre at the University of Warwick (UK).
If you wish to present a paper (or other eg creative format), please submit your abstract via the button below by 16 June. For all participants, including those wishing to attend but not present a paper, registration opens on 14 July when the programme will also be published.
Research funding success!
COPR members have secured funding for two of the 11 projects funded through the Police STAR fund for 2025-26. This is especially great news as fewer projects are funded each year (there were 15 in 2024-25 and 19 in 2023-24). You can read more about the projects funded on the Police STAR Fund pages. The projects involving COPR members are: READ MORE.
Insightful discussions on the challenges of conducting police research at COPR Early-Career Researcher Symposium
On the 29th of April COPR hosted an ECR symposium bringing together students from Universities across the UK whose research looks at the challenges posed both to and by policing. Researchers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds presented on topics ranging from the use of AI to streamline evidence processing in VWAG investigations; identifying common features of domestic homicides to strengthen preventive strategies; the role of text analytics in investigating online criminal behaviours; to understanding the relationship between dark personality traits and police use of force.
COPR/CJC Research Seminar - 15 May 2025
- Title: ‘Domestic threats to state sovereignty in the ‘frontier zone’. Federal State policing performance and population disputes on the margins
- Speaker: Sabina Frederic (Visiting Professor, IAS, School of Law, University of Warwick; National University of Quilmes-National Council of Scientific Research)
- Chair: Prof Jackie Hodgson, co-director COPR
- When: 15 May 2025, 1-2pm, Room s2.12 (Lunch from 12.30 in s2.09; Seminar 1-2pm in s2.12) & Online (this is a hybrid event - please contact Sandra.Phillips@warwick.ac.uk if you wish to join online).
New Blog: The #spycops scandal: Subversion and Collateral Intrusions
By Chris Brian
Between 1968 and 2010, 144 undercover officers were deployed into groups, filing 1000s of reports on their activities and intertwining themselves, often damagingly, into the lives of political activists.
The Undercover Policing Inquiry has revealed that of the thousands of now-published Special Branch reports, only a few contained information relevant to the undercover unit Special Demonstration Squad’s (SDS) stated primary objective: controlling public order. READ NOW
COPR Early Career Researcher Symposium
Doing Police Research: Approaches and Challenges - A Showcase of Early Career Research
- Date: Tuesday 29th April 2025
- Time: 10:30am –5:00pm
- Venue: The University of Warwick
- Cost: Free of charge
- Call for papers closes 11th March!
REGISTER ATTENDANCE & SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT HERE
Spycops, Subversion & Collateral Intrusion
COPR/WLS Research Seminar - Event Registration Form
Spycops, Subversion & Collateral Intrusion
Christopher Brian, The Undercover Research Group
- Friday 31 January 2025
- 13:00-14:30
- The Junction - Room JX2.02
More info and register here
Funding available to support Warwick researchers
The Centre for Operational Police Research (COPR) currently has funding available to support Warwick researchers who are conducting interdisciplinary police-related research.
If you're a Warwick researcher and have a small pilot project, workshop, panel discussion, seminar series, impact activity you wish to launch between now and 30th July 2024, and require a small amount of financial support (up to £1,000), please apply!
The fund is also available to support pump-priming activities such as research assistance for literature reviews, pilot projects, uniting potential collaborators, or co-creation with non-academic stakeholders.
The fund is available to support Warwick researchers at all stages in their career, including PhD students.
If you would like to apply for funding, please complete the online form briefly outlining your project objectives, description of activities, intended outputs, timeline and brief budget.
There is a rolling deadline for these applications until the money runs out! The project must be completed and all funds spent by the 30th of July 2024.
Dimensions of Police Research, From Borders to Boroughs: A Showcase of Early Career Research
Date: 10th May 2024
Time: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Venue: Social Sciences Building S0.20, The University of Warwick
There are few environments and institutions as simultaneously important and reproachful of being studied as custody and the police. Whilst it is vital that we study these spaces, actors, procedures and associated phenomena it is undoubtedly hard to do so. This is especially true on a global scale when we consider facilities like refugee detention centres and the policing of borders.
The advertised day-event, hosted by the University of Warwick on the 10th May 2024, is precluded on this idea that our shared contribution to this area of knowledge is essential to the maintenance of conceptions of justice and transparency which underpin the legitimacy of states and punishment globally
COPR & CJC Seminar: Policing & Trauma
In-person attendees are warmly invited to join us for lunch afterwards (please specify dietary requirements in your RSVP email if attending in person).
Speakers:
- Dr. Karen Lumsden (University of Aberdeen) & Dr. Alex Black (Sheffield Hallam University)
- Inspector Tony Eustace (West Midlands Police) & Sergeant Matt Manwaring (West Midlands Police).