School of Law academic is awarded funding to foster collaboration
Professor Jose Pina-Sánchez has been awarded faculty funding for the Cars & Crime Project.
As the University of Leeds brings together the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Environment, a new grant has been announced to support ten Social Science-led projects. The funding is designed to encourage cross-faculty collaboration and open new areas of research.
The objectives of the Cars & Crime Project are to strengthen and expand the ongoing collaborations on the intersection between motor traffic and criminality within the new faculty, and to position the University of Leeds as the leading research institution on this subject. Building on the successful 2025 Cars and Crime symposium, the funding will enable Professor Pina-Sánchez and his partners Dr Roger Beecham (School of Geography), Professor Robin Lovelace, and Dr Caroline Tait (both Institute for Transport Studies), to host two research activities at the University of Leeds:
- the 2026 Cars & Crime conference, open to other researchers working on this area, and stakeholders from West Yorkshire Police, The Police Foundation, and Action Vision Zero;
- a writing retreat for members of the new faculty working on cross-school projects.
These two events provide networking opportunities for researchers and stakeholders who would not ordinarily work together because of disciplinary and professional barriers. The unique value of the symposium is reflected in the calibre of its 24 participants, who include representatives from leading UK universities such as Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford, and UCL, as well as international researchers from Pennsylvania, Cologne, Porto, and the Basque Country.
Importantly, the events are helping to develop and refine ongoing collaborations among researchers across the new Faculty. These collaborations already include two registered reports – Does the fear-victimisation paradox apply to the context of road violence? and The road violence toll of urban sprawl: A registered report of collisions with cyclists and pedestrians in England and Wales –, as well as a new research proposal that will be submitted to the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative.
Professor Pina-Sánchez says:
I have been working at the University of Leeds for over a decade, yet I had remained largely unaware of how much I could learn from and achieve alongside colleagues in Geography and Transport Studies. Our new Faculty’s encouragement to collaborate beyond our own schools, coupled with seed funding for our pilot project, has helped unlock a research synergy that was hiding in plain sight. Our recent collaborations, published in Geographical Analysis and currently under review at Peer Community In, have already demonstrated the value of this partnership, and I am convinced that the best is yet to come.
Professor Pina-Sánchez’s successful funding bid cements the School of Law’s leading role in interdisciplinary research tackling pressing social and environmental challenges.
Further Information
Professor Pina-Sánchez is a member of the School of Law’s Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, and can be found on Bluesky @jpinasanchez.bsky.social
