Watkinson-Miley, C (2025) Occupying a Pracademic space in making new knowledge: The experiences and consequences for researchers and practitioners alike in building and sustaining collaborative police-academic partnerships. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Abstract

Police-academic partnerships are not a new phenomenon, but they have gained a revived wave of energy following the College of Policing’s introduction of the Police Education Qualification Framework and associated efforts to professionalise the service. Since 2015 there have been policy initiatives and funding injections that have sought to stimulate police forces and academics partnering to generate research to inform policy and practice, processes that have been given greater momentum due to the changes in police education and the emphasis on degree entry requirements. To help make sense of a greatly changed and evolving landscape this thesis utilises Bourdieu’s (Bourdieu, 1989; Grenfell, 2012; Maton, 2012; Thomson, 2012; Prieur, 2018) theoretical framework positioning to explore how, in the dynamic space between a distinct policing (practice) field and an academic (research) field, there are now those who occupy a pracademic field replete with its own forms of capital, habitus and legitimacy. The research outlines how the interactions between practice and research communities can increasingly be characterised as one of co-dependence – an increasingly functional exchange that enables academics to generate credibility by impacting on policy and practice, and where policing practitioners can legitimise and make more transparent their decision-making processes in shaping practice innovation. Engaging with members of academic and practice communities alike who have experienced working within research-led partnership arrangements the study data captures the experiences of those immersed in navigating this new hybrid field, as they try to establish new forms of capital to offer them credit in both the pracademic field and their home fields. Mixed methods data outlines their experiences and captures what these new forms of capital are for police-academic partnerships to be sustainable for future working. What the thesis will demonstrate is that forms of academic and policing capital from two distinct fields are being adapted to shape new shared forms of pracademic capital. The research indicates that whilst shifts in culture have, and are, taking place as academics and practitioners alike see merit in the learning generated by evidence-based practice thinking, the sense that this is a landscape still in transition and the challenges in being able to pinpoint clear tangible outcomes of collaborative working can make it feel that it is difficult to build castles in this sand. The study, in its conclusions, helps explore how sustainable and enduring police-academic partnerships can be based on the shared learning of what those involved feel is possible in occupying a pracademic space.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Police-academic partnerships; Evidence-based policing; Police research
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV7231 Criminal Justice Administrations
Divisions:	Justice Studies (from Sep 19)
SWORD Depositor:	A Symplectic
Date Deposited:	20 Jan 2025 10:19
Last Modified:	20 Jan 2025 10:20
DOI or ID number:	10.24377/LJMU.t.00025230
Supervisors:	Millings, M and Selby-Fell, H
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/25230

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