About the Centre

The Centre for Policing Research and Learning (CPRL) exists to address major policing challenges through research, innovation and collaboration for the public good.

Founded in 2014 through the Police Knowledge Fund, CPRL was one of the pioneering policing research centres in the UK and helped lay important foundations for the research and innovation landscape that has developed since. That founding mission - to bring research, practice and learning together to improve policing - continues to shape the Centre today.

We focus on questions that matter nationally and internationally: the complex and often intractable challenges facing policing in a rapidly changing social, technological and security landscape. Our mission is not simply to study those problems, but to help generate the knowledge, partnerships and innovations needed to address them.

CPRL is a problem-solving research centre undertaking leading-edge interdisciplinary research across a range of domains. A core foundation of this work lies in the social and behavioural sciences, where the Centre has longstanding strengths in areas such as police legitimacy, public order, violence against women and girls, disproportionality and equity in policing, organisational culture, leadership, retention and workforce challenges. This work remains central to the Centre’s identity and mission.

Building from these strengths, the Centre increasingly works across disciplines and reaches into other Faculties and research domains to address emerging challenges. This includes a growing focus on science and technology, digital transformation and future policing challenges, complementing and extending - rather than replacing - our established research foundations.

A distinctive feature of the Centre is our collaborative, challenge-led approach. Research is not confined to projects and publications. We also convene workshops, innovation forums, strategic dialogues and collaborative events that bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers and industry to explore pressing questions, generate solutions and shape new directions for policy and practice.

A defining strength of the Centre lies in its membership model and strategic relationships with police forces and partner organisations. Through sustained engagement with members at strategic level, the Centre helps identify priority problems, mobilise expertise at scale, and co-produce work that is responsive to local and national policing priorities. This ability to convene capacity, align partners and support innovation at scale is a distinctive asset of the Centre.

Alongside research and innovation, the Centre supports professional development through research-informed learning opportunities, practitioner engagement and knowledge exchange. While formal education and qualifications sit within the Department of Policing, CPRL contributes through professional development activities designed to support innovation, evidence use and leadership in practice.

The Centre is based in the Faculty of Business and Law at The Open University and works across disciplines, faculties and external partnerships to advance research that contributes to safer, more effective and more legitimate policing.

Meet the team Policing Partners

Our work

Our activities are organised around four interconnected areas:

Research

We undertake challenge-led interdisciplinary research designed to address major policing questions, generate new knowledge and support evidence-informed innovation in policy and practice.

Innovation

We convene stakeholders through workshops, collaborative forums and problem-solving initiatives designed to develop, test and scale new approaches to contemporary policing challenges.

Science and Technology

We are developing a growing programme of work exploring how science and technology can help address emerging policing challenges through interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.

Partnerships and Professional Development

Through our membership network and wider partnerships, we mobilise expertise at scale, align research with operational priorities and support professional development through research-informed learning and practitioner engagement. Our members play a central role in shaping the Centre’s programme of work, helping ensure that our activities remain responsive to local and national priorities while supporting innovation with practical relevance and impact.