Launch of CPRL Collaborative to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and research across the OU with CPRL members

CPRL has launched a new format of research seminars under the brand ‘CPRL Collaborative’ that are open to academics and our police force members. While CPRL focuses mainly on policing research, we know that across the OU there are many academics undertaking research, which has important relevance to our research and knowledge exchange. The Collaborative is designed to access and promote this research and to incorporate it in our work.

On 9 November 2023, a ‘CPRL Collaborative’ Research Seminar focussed on “uncomfortable knowledge in public services” with presentations by Prof. Mark Fenton-O’Creevy (Department for People and Organisations, OU), Dr. Anna Hopkins (Department of Policing, OU) and Prof. Harri Jalonen (University of Vaasa, Finland). Harri’s literature review on organisational ignorance has revealed that “non-learning happens when organisations divorce themselves from issues that must be attended to in the future” (Jalonen, 2023:12).

Mark argued that this may be particularly relevant to police forces, which often tend to emphasize operational over strategic issues and value fast decision-making processes. He suggested that an important area of unattended uncomfortable knowledge in policing is the tension between the need for strategic change and development and the ‘sacred’ nature of avoiding ‘abstraction’. The presentations, as well as recordings of this event can be accessed in the CPRL membership area.

In the New Year, the CPRL Collaborative will be inviting members to join a sandpit-type online workshop on digital policing to jointly discuss ideas for potential new research projects. If you or one of your colleagues would like to make a brief pitch outlining a potential research project on digital policing, please contact Elke Loeffler at oupc@open.ac.uk to start the conversation.