Security, Crime, and Intelligence Innovation Institute officially launched

Cardiff University has launched a ground-breaking innovation institute which aims to tackle the new threats in crime, security, and community safety being generated by the datafication of society and spread of disinformation.

Cardiff University is proud to officially launch the Security, Crime, and Intelligence Innovation Institute. The Institute brings together world-leading inter-disciplinary research units to develop innovative solutions to the problems of crime, global security, and social control.

The Institute’s interdisciplinary design brings experts from different academic disciplines, including criminology, computer science, strategic communications, and behavioural science, to tackle real-world challenges. Its experts are dedicated to designing and delivering creative solutions targeted towards some of our most urgent public safety and security challenges, and to help shape significant changes to policy and practice locally, nationally, and internationally.

The Institute’s work is based around 4 key themes:

• Policing – the Universities’ Police Science Institute is working with policing agencies nationally and internationally to trial and test policy and practice innovations to improve the prevention of, and responses to, crime.
• Violence – the Violence Research Group has a significant international reputation and experience of conducting methodologically sophisticated evidence-based studies, that leverage real world impact in terms of violence reduction.
• Defence – the Distributed Analytics and Information Science Group are at the forefront of exploiting artificial intelligence for the defence sector, working in close collaboration with industrial and government partners.
• Information Threats – the Disinformation, Strategic Communications and Open Source Research Programme is calling-out disinformation and the manipulation of information to malignly influence our democratic elections, and policies on public health, climate change and national security.

The launch, which took place on Thursday 20 April, showcased the valuable work being undertaken by the Institute, and included presentations from each of the Co-Directors, as well as workshops geared toward establishing real-world impact. Guests included researchers from Cardiff University, and representatives from Welsh Government and South Wales Police.

Professor Martin Innes, Lead Co-Director of the Institute, said: “The onset of the information age is inducing profound new societal and technological challenges that are impacting upon public safety and security at the local, national, and global levels. Our Institute is designed to deliver innovative insight and evidence, enabling improved understanding of, and responses to, these challenges.”

The Security, Crime, and Intelligence Innovation Institute is part of a £5.4 million investment from Cardiff University in five innovation and research institutes to tackle the biggest issues facing society, the economy, and the environment.