Introduction to EMPAC

The East Midlands Police and Academic Collaboration was formed in 2015 to bring together practitioners in Criminal Justice Services and academics to create closer relationships and develop research projects that have an impact on practice within the delivery of Criminal Justice Services. In 2016 the College of Policing and the Higher Education Funding Council for England made funding available to encourage collaboration work between Police forces and academic institutions. EMPAC was successful in securing funding to develop a programme of activities across the region aimed at enhancing the collaboration and developing evidenced based practice in policing. All five police forces in the East Midlands region are members of the collaboration along with all five Offices of the Police and Crime Commissioners and seven academic institutions. This paper gives an overview of the work of the collaboration as well as discussing the potential future of EMPAC and the impact that academic and practitioner collaborations can have on the development of services in an increasingly complex and demanding environment. The focus is firmly on the questions of how can research impact upon practitioner decision making and practice and how the practitioner experience and knowledge impacts the development of research activity that has a real and measurable effect on practice. Through the process of joint working between practitioners and academics a much greater emphasis is now being placed on evidenced based approaches and this paper explores this and the potential developments for the future.