The ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre has announced funding for three innovative projects led by early career researchers, all aimed at addressing urgent social problems.
11 December 2025
The projects will tackle issues including police interactions with disabled and neurodiverse victim-survivors, improving collaboration between frontline services during mental health crises, and strengthening child-centred approaches in multi-agency decision-making.
These successful projects complete the final round of the Centre’s Early Career Researcher (ECR) Development Fund, which has awarded grants to 17 aspiring researchers across 14 different organisations. The fund is designed to strengthen research capacity and develop the next generation of vulnerability and policing researchers.
The selected projects, which begin in February 2026 and run for a year, include:
Disabled by police injustice? Developing a dynamic Procedural Justice Model (PJM) attuned to the contextual nature of disability, health and vulnerability
Led by Dr Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer (University of Reading), this project will explore how police procedural injustice shapes and is shaped by sexual violence victim-survivors’ disabilities, health and neurodiversity, and what possibilities for justice exist. The project will collaborate with The DIVAS Project, a victim-survivor group at Women’s Centre Cornwall, and use mixed methods, including undertaking workshops and secondary data analysis of an Operation Soteria survey of victim-survivors and their experiences of police in England and Wales.
Improving frontline collaboration: Mental health responses in Policing and Emergency Departments
Dr Hanna Munden (Coventry University) will lead a project examining how police and emergency department staff manage handovers of individuals in mental health crisis. Through ethnography, interviews, workshops, and hospital data, the project will explore challenges, policy impacts, and inclusion in order to improve collaboration, enhance patient care, and protect staff from harm.
Towards Participatory Justice: Aligning Child First Principles with Risk Management and Community Safety in Multi-Agency High-Risk Panels
Through co-production with youth justice professionals, this project, led by Dr Samantha Burns (Manchester Metropolitan University), will critically examine how police and multi-agency partners involve children in ‘high risk’ panels. This will strengthen participatory justice and support improved multi-agency decision making by generating innovative, meaningful and inclusive child-centred guidance to reshape practice in multi-agency contexts.
Views from the Centre
Professor Charlie Lloyd, Deputy Director of the ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, said:
“These projects are outstanding. Each one tackles complex, real-world challenges with creativity and rigor, offering fresh insights that could transform policy and practice. We’re excited to see how these studies will drive meaningful change and strengthen responses to vulnerability in policing and beyond.”
ESRC Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre Co-Director Professor Kate Brown said:
“Over the past few years, the Centre’s ECR Development Fund has been a resounding success, equipping early career researchers with the capacity, confidence, and networks to lead critical areas of research in the future. By investing in emerging talent, we’re building a strong foundation for innovative thinking and long-term impact across the field.”