The ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre is delighted to announce that five early career researchers (ECR) have been awarded funding through its ECR Development Fund to lead innovative new projects.
27 March 2025
The projects funded cover pressing issues such as stalking, stop and search, romance fraud, missing persons and sextortion.
The ECR Development Fund aims to build research capacity and capability to tackle current and emerging challenges related to vulnerability and policing. It enables ECRs to lead co-produced pioneering projects that contribute new findings and insights to these areas.
The 12-month projects will commence in May 2025 with successful applicants receiving support from the Centre to maximise the reach and impact of the research.
“We are delighted to fund five early career researchers to lead a valuable set of projects that explore important challenges in the field of vulnerability and policing,” said Centre Deputy Director Professor Charlie Lloyd.
“These projects stood out among a competitive field and we’re looking forward to seeing what insights they can gain and supporting them as a Centre to achieve their potential.”
Funded projects
Stop and search and the reproduction of social inequality
Led by Dr Thiago Oliveira (University of Manchester)
This project examines whether growing up in over-policed neighbourhoods is associated with unintended life-course consequences, such as damaged educational achievement and involvement in criminal activity. By linking longitudinal survey data with geocoded stop and search data, the project will assess the degree to which policing contributes to reproducing social inequality.
Policing sextortion: improving understanding of the nature, extent and experiences of (re)victimisation
Led by Dr Emily Cooper (University of Central Lancashire)
This project will provide evidence to address knowledge gaps about the nature and extent of sextortion (re)victimisation. Co-produced with the Revenge Porn Helpline, We Fight Fraud, and Lancashire Police, this mixed methods project will draw on two datasets to investigate how victims experience sextortion and to improve police responses.
Developing an Evidence-Based Interviewing Approach for Ethnically Diverse Missing Persons Investigations
Led by Dr Alejandra De La Fuente Vilar (University of Portsmouth)
Minority ethnic individuals are disproportionately represented in missing persons incidents, yet practitioners currently lack tools to effectively gather information in this context. In collaboration with police and search and rescue professionals, this project will examine how ethnicity impacts interviews when reporting a missing person. The project team will test an innovative, tailored interviewing approach to enhance investigations involving ethnically diverse missing persons.
Experiences of and responses to intimate partner stalking in the lives of young people aged 13-19 years
Led by Dr Kelly Bracewell (University of Central Lancashire)
This project will explore how stalking operates in young people’s dating and relationships with partners.
Collaborating with stalking and abuse charities and police, this co-designed study will collate administrative datasets and qualitative data to investigate how young people experience stalking and how police and other agencies understand, identify, and respond.
Redefining vulnerability: Critically examining risk and protective factors in the context of romance fraud
Led by Dr Jo Kenrick (University of Greenwich)
Working alongside two police forces (Kent and Essex) with the involvement of stakeholders with lived experience, this interdisciplinary project will investigate people’s vulnerability to romance fraud. The project will use quantitative statistical modelling methods with the aim of improving how vulnerability is defined, and ultimately how police engage with victims and potential victims.