Spotlight on Research Fellow Dr Larissa Engelmann

Dr Engelmann is a Research Fellow in the School of Law and the ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre. She shares her insights into life as a Research Fellow in her own words.

I am a researcher working in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre co-hosted by the University of Leeds and the University of York, which aims to reshape how police and other organisations work together in order to reduce harm among people who experience vulnerability in society. I work on a number of projects within the centre to support this aim. Two of my projects take place in Leeds and Bradford and explore how police and partners work together to address local needs when it comes to vulnerabilities such as experiencing homelessness or violence against women and girls.

Working with communities

I am passionate about working with communities to co-develop solutions that work. One example is the development of local standards to address online child sexual victimisation, where I worked with children, young people, parents and practitioners to identify how to prevent and respond to this problem in one local authority area in the North of England. I worked with a local spoken word artist and local youth clubs to co-develop an animation that helped local young people to share their views on the topic. This work is now being replicated in another area in England and aims to create nationally and internationally applicable standards or ways of engagement to develop community resilience in addressing online child sexual abuse and exploitation.

ESRC Festival of Social Science

More recently, I led a public engagement event as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science to hear from women and girls in Bradford about where they feel safe or unsafe and what the police can do to address violence against women and girls. This ongoing work will create a better understanding of how local initiatives address the needs of women and girls and is part of a wider stakeholder engagement piece to identify good practice and ongoing challenges in this space.

Public engagement event in Bradford

Building international networks and knowledge

As co-chair of the European Society of Criminology Policing Working Group (ESCPWG) and board member of the Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Association, I support the development of international networks of academics and practitioners to address contemporary policing challenges. One exciting piece of work I’m involved in explores European perspectives on police-academic partnerships. This is creating a dialogue about some of the enduring challenges academics and police encounter when trying to translate knowledge into practice or indeed practice into knowledge.

An upcoming conference in May 2025 in Ostend (Belgium), organised by the Belgian Centre for Policing and Security will focus on these discussions bringing together a group of international liaisons. I will lead a thought-provoking workshop exploring what success looks like and where the boundaries in police-academic partnerships lie. These discussions will form part of a special issue dedicated to European perspectives on the fragility of police-academic partnerships, which I am co-editing with my colleagues from Belgium (Professor Marleen Easton, Ghent University) and Iceland (Professor Guðmundur Oddsson).

Advancing policing practice

Practitioner workshop at the Scottish Police College in December 2024

As a recent recipient of the Edinburgh Napier University Rising Star Alumni Award in 2024, in addition to my work with the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, I continue my work on police learning and education, particularly with my colleagues in Scotland. Working with the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and Dr Andy Tatnell (Edinburgh Napier University), I recently completed a successful evaluation of the Scottish Tutor Constable model and presented the findings at a practitioner workshop at the Scottish Police College in December 2024. This work is used to advance the local tutor model and has created opportunities to work closely with partners from other countries to develop a broader piece of work about police learning, talent management, and retention. I will be presenting some of this work at the European Society of Criminology Conference in Athens (Greece).

Supporting the development of early career researchers

Working closely with my Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre colleagues Dr Christine A Weirich, Dr Laura Bainbridge, Nathan Capstick and Dr David Rowlands (all School of Law, University of Leeds), I helped establish the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre international PhD Network, which supports both local and international PhD students. I also developed a joint Vulnerability and Policing Seminar series between the research centre, the N8 Policing Partnership, the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the British Society of Criminology Vulnerability Research Network. This series brings together academics and practitioners to support early career researchers to address challenges in researching sensitive and difficult subjects, such as Neurodiversity and the criminal justice system or the use of intermediaries in the criminal justice system.

I also lead PhD webinars within the European Society of Criminology Policing Working Group, in which PhD and early career researchers from across Europe have had the opportunity to ask sensitive and critical questions to better their own research and help us to understand what challenges researchers encounter when doing research on, with and by the police.

To follow Dr Engelmann’s academic journey, check out her LinkedIn profile or her staff profile.