The Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre runs an annual Early Career Researcher (ECR) Development Fund for research that aligns with the Centre’s programme of work, values and principles.
The Fund aims to build research capacity and capability to tackle current and emerging challenges related to vulnerability and policing. It seeks to widen the reach of the Centre’s work, enabling early career researchers to lead co-produced pioneering projects that contribute new findings and insights. It supports research in areas where knowledge gaps are most prominent and where research benefits offer the greatest value.
Research grants of up to £25,000 for 12-month projects are available. The Centre provides support to the successful applicants to maximise the reach and impact of their research.
ECR Development Fund for 2026
The deadline for the ECR Development Fund for 2026 has now passed. The Centre will announce successful projects in the coming months. Read more about previous projects funded through the grant below.
Previous ECR Development Fund calls
The Centre received a wide range of high-quality applications in its first two calls. Read about the completed and existing funded projects:
ECR Development Fund for 2023
- Domestic Abuse Service Providers and their Stories – Dr Rebecca Shaw (University of Leeds)
- Reducing Barriers to Reporting Public Sexual Harassment to the Police: Towards Procedural Justice for Racially Minoritised Vulnerable Young Women and Girls – Dr Nadia Jessop (University of York)
- Social Media-Facilitated Trafficking of Children and Young People – Dr Laura Pajón (Liverpool John Moores University)
- Who matters? A collaborative co-investigation of who needs to be included, according to families with children with explosive and controlling impulses – Dr Nikki Rutter (Durham University)
ECR Development Fund for 2024
- Policing and community resilience in the context of climate change – Dr Ali Malik (University of Leeds)
- Policing collective coercion: improving understandings of coercive control in honour-based violence and abuse – Dr Lis Bates (University of Central Lancashire)
- Recognising the Risks and Harms for Repeat Missing Children from Different Residential Environments through a Child and Practitioner Lens – Dr Kirsty Bennett (Leeds Trinity University)
- Roma Voices for Change: Identifying and managing child exploitation in Roma communities within Bradford – Dr Sarah Shorrock (University of Bradford)
ECR Development Fund for 2025
- Stop and search and the reproduction of social inequality – Dr Thiago Oliveira (University of Manchester)
- Policing sextortion: improving understanding of the nature, extent and experiences of (re)victimisation – Dr Emily Cooper (University of Central Lancashire)
- Developing an Evidence-Based Interviewing Approach for Ethnically Diverse Missing Persons Investigations – Dr Alejandra De La Fuente Vilar (University of Portsmouth)
- Experiences of and responses to intimate partner stalking in the lives of young people aged 13-19 years – Dr Kelly Bracewell (University of Central Lancashire)
- Redefining vulnerability: Critically examining risk and protective factors in the context of romance fraud – Dr Jo Kenrick (University of Greenwich)