Violence and Society Centre

The Violence and Society (VAS) centre bridges health and justice.

We engage in novel and intersectoral research to inform the development of policies to reduce violence of all kinds and its effect on health and health inequalities.

Interdisciplinary collaboration

The Centre comprises an interdisciplinary group of researchers and professional staff with diverse backgrounds spanning health and justice. As a collective, we have expertise in computer science, criminology, data science, engineering, epidemiology, geography, international politics, law, medicine, mental health, sociology, social policy, public health and psychology.

Partnership engagement

We partner with people with lived experience; peer researchers; practitioners in health, justice, education, welfare, and specialist domestic and sexual violence services; community and voluntary sector organisations; unions and employers; central and local government; research and data collection agencies and other academics; and those in parliament working for change. We aim to bridge sectors to support new ways of working to reduce violence.

Informing evidence-based policy

Key to much of our research is a commitment to uphold rigorous scientific protocols to ensure we provide high quality empirical outputs of use to the generation of policy. We uphold open science framework principles of transparency, and reproducibility of our research.

Methodical expertise

We use a range of methodologies. We analyse a diverse range of datasets, including service and administrative, statutory reviews survey, and social media and other ‘big’ data, including using national language processing techniques. We also have expertise in systematic reviews, qualitative methodologies and we engage with people with a range of lived and professional experience.

Critical practice

We use methods critically to reveal the biases in how data, knowledge and policy are constructed and synthesised. We aim to always be informed by intersectional understandings and work towards systems level change.