Conflict, security and crime
Conflict is perhaps an inevitable part of the modern world. Our research seeks to understand how conflict is communicated and presented and to challenge its worst by-products.
Our participation in a sexual violence in conflict network with academics from other universities, Oxfam and War Child resulted in a workshop on the protection of women and children in armed conflict, organized for humanitarian workers in Senegal by an NGO.
We also work to understand the narratives of conflict and the legacies that these leave behind. The School of Modern Languages is collaborating with Bath University, the Imperial War Museum and the Welsh Centre for International Affairs on the Visual Legacies of World War I and II project.
In a world where everyone from eco-warriors to elected presidents look to the media to advance their strategic aims, we help to analyse how conflict is mediatized. Researchers in our Centre for Mediatised Conflict explore events such as environmental conflicts, the Arab Spring and disasters as mediatized conflicts.
The Centre also undertook an important analysis into the deaths of media workers with the International News Safety Institute (INSI).
Our academics also seek to understand the security challenges that sometimes lead to conflict.
Researchers are exploring maritime security as part of a major ESRC funded Counter-Piracy Governance Project project. An IdeasLab event recently brought together academics, lawyers, architects, analysts from the Royal Navy, the UK Maritime Information Centre and the European Union, novelists and the private sector to discuss the future agenda of maritime security studies.
We are also playing a major part in the URBIS project. Funded by the European Commission, the project questions the possibilities for urban security management given the increasing freedom of movement of people, goods and services across national borders, an increasingly austere economic climate and consequent pressures on governing capacity in European cities.
The Crime and Security Research Institute has been set up to conduct research that generates new evidence and insights to help reduce crime and increase security. Through the application of interdisciplinary expertise, they will provide research-led solutions to the local and global challenges associated with effective crime and security management.
Our Universities' Police Science Institute (UPSI) was explicitly praised by the Home Secretary in 2012 and Is currently being promoted as a model for the future development of research-based police practice by the new College of Policing.
The UPSI has made major contributions to research on the 'Prevent' counter terrorism strategy, informing national policy, and has collaborated with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary resulting in a shift from the policing of anti-social behaviour to greater concentration on vulnerable victims' needs.
The ongoing partnership with South Wales Police has devised new and innovative methods for police-community engagement at a neighbourhood level, using a qualitative GIS platform. Research collaborations exist with Victoria Police in Australia and with the Police Academy of the Netherlands on a European Commission funded grant, countering violent extremist radicalisation.