Remembering Dr Nicky Miller

It is with great sadness that we have to let colleagues know of the premature death of our dear friend Dr Nicky Miller in mid-December, following a recent cancer diagnosis. We send our heartfelt condolences to her husband Rohan and her daughter Erin.  

Nicky joined the Open University in early 2019 as a Senior Lecturer in Policing and later that year became Director of Knowledge into Practice at the Centre for Policing Research and Learning. She had had a substantial research career in policing, having worked for both the Home Office and the College of Policing (and its predecessors). She was a psychologist by education, with a PhD in investigative psychology and she deployed these skills very effectively in police analysis. As a civil servant, she had championed the value and practical use of research evidence in policing and initiated several schemes designed to create and strengthen partnerships between police forces and academics across the UK and with international links. For example, she was instrumental in setting up and sustaining the ESRC What Works Centre on Crime Reduction. She was the mastermind behind the UK-wide Police Knowledge Fund which led to awards to 14 universities including a large award to the Open University, which enabled CPRL to expand in 2016. Her leadership of that programme honed her understanding and knowledge about academic -practitioner relationships, which she put to good use when she later came to the Open University. 

On joining the OU, Nicky initially worked on the brand-new policing degree apprenticeship programme for police constables. The team was just being set up and Nicky’s knowledge of policing, her expertise in research and research methods, and her experience as a manager of people were all helpful in the crucible of establishing a new degree. Her combination of knowledge and skills was unusual and highly appreciated. 

Nicky soon became involved in CPRL, initially as Centre Impact Lead and then moving from apprenticeship work to become the Centre’s full-time Director of Knowledge into Practice later in 2019. It was Nicky’s insistence back at the College which had created this third strand of activity alongside teaching and research, and she expanded this work across the CPRL network within the university and across the UK-wide police forces. Nicky was a positive energetic force who encouraged, challenged, taught, advised, teased, and generally influenced us all to think not only about research but about how it could or might be used by practitioners. She used the same skills to influence practitioners to think about how they might use academic research in practical ways. She embodied the mantra “Research into practice, and practice into research”, coined by the earlier Chair of CPRL Steven Chase. Her work on theories of change helped academics to envisage in the early stages of research design what potential for impact the research might hold, and how to track impacts through the project. 

Nicky’s work as a member of the CPRL leadership team contributed significantly to raising the profile of CPRL, both in police forces in the UK and internationally. She liked having a plan to chart out steps forward and encouraged the Centre to create a road map to ensure we all did high-quality academic work which landed in policing in practical ways. She was well networked in policing, and gave her time generously to help police make sense and make use of academic research. 

She was a superb representative of OU policing in that practitioner world, through her work on force engagement in evidence-based practice and her sitting on many force Evidence Based Policing Boards. She kept an eye on emerging research findings or innovative methods and encouraged academics to run workshops and seminars to share findings and their implications with police. 

Perhaps it was her experience of working in both the worlds of policing and academia, understanding their cultures, rationales, and values which enabled her to create such rich encounters between these two worlds. Right into the autumn, she was writing about what makes an academic-practitioner partnership work effectively (and which we hope will be published posthumously). 

She had a clear eye about what makes for good knowledge into practice work with real engagement and exploration of ideas and practices between partners. This was not simple “dissemination” of research findings but a grounded, pragmatic theory and understanding of what makes organizations tick and therefore how to infuse new knowledge into practices in already pressured public services. This was seen in many projects but stands out particularly in the Operation Soteria project about improving police practices in relation to serious sexual offences, where Nicky was central to the work. She was typically modest about her own contribution but those of us who saw the work close up saw how much she shaped that work. 

Above all, Nicky touched many lives in the Department of Policing, in CPRL, across the university, in police forces and internationally because she was a good and empathic listener and an energising force to be with. She was a true friend who cared about the people around her and helped her colleagues whenever she could. During the Covid lockdowns, she maintained informal online contact with many people, ensuring that they felt connected and supported. Her enthusiasm, fun, hard work as well as intelligence made her an ideal colleague and friend. We will miss her enormously. 

The Department for Policing have set up a memorial page for OU colleagues to share their memories of Nicky and a place to connect with those that knew her. It is the intention in the new year to collate these tributes to create a memory book for Nicky’s family so that they know how special Nicky was to the faculty. Please feel free to share photos, memories or tributes on the memorial page or email oupc@open.ac.uk