As an institution with a growing portfolio of research activities, the University of Suffolk’s work reaches into a breadth of spheres – from healthy ageing across to the wellbeing of housing tenants, the use of artificial intelligence in agriculture and conservation of primates in the Peruvian Amazon to name a few.
One area of specialism is from the Institute for Social Justice and Crime (ISJC), a team of researchers who are experts in gender-based violence among other areas.
Since its launch five years ago, its work has helped shape a new policing model for investigating rape and serious sexual offences nationally, mapped the support services for victim survivors of sexual violence in Suffolk, and exposed the gaps in support for victims of online-facilitated abuse.
It is also home to two nationally significant research networks – the Violence Against Women and Girls Research Network (VAWGRN) and the Domestic Abuse Research Network (DARNet) – which importantly bring academics and practitioners together in safe spaces to deliver real-world impacts for those who support victim survivors of violence and abuse.
The VAWGRN was formed in 2020, initially at Middlesex University, and its membership spans across sectors such as law, social work, psychology, health, media and the arts, grounded in solidarity and the collective aim to end violence against women and girls.
DARNet meanwhile was formed in 2019 by Dr Olumide Adisa, drawing on expertise from across the East of England initially but now has more than 330 members nationally, and has conducted research on abuse-related issues such as stalking, forced marriage and ‘honour’-based abuse.
Both groups are member-volunteer led, meaning that the work and direction the networks take, and the events they offer, are informed by those with genuine expertise, including researchers, practitioners and victim survivors.
Dr Katherine Allen, Senior Research Fellow at the ISJC and co-ordinator at DARNet, says: “It is not about research being an ivory tower, it is about being practice and experience-focused. It is sparking those conversations between research and practice that leads on to research into some important issues.”
ISJC Research Fellow Dr Laura Stevens is also a co-ordinator in DARNet, and adds: “We are taking research and practice together so we are not just talking about the evidence base of an issue, but it is actually getting individuals who are working on this on the ground to have those discussions. It is incredibly collaborative.”
Professor Miranda Horvath, ISJC Director and founder of the VAWGRN, says the space the VAWGRN has formed at its events – including enabling respectful disagreement on sensitive and divisive topics – has been crucial.
She adds: “We have a lot of people with lived experience and what we are increasingly seeing at events is that people feel it is a safe space, so we have practitioners and researchers bringing their participants to co-present findings with them. That seems like a really obvious thing to do, but it is not the norm in academic circles.”
The coming together of academics and practitioners is significant.
Operation Soteria was a programme developed in response to concerns about the handling of rape and serious sexual offences, and resulted in a new police national operating model launching in 2023 to investigate these offences.
The seeds of the programme came from a VAWGRN webinar, where Avon and Somerset Police Chief Constable, Sarah Crew, voiced the difficulties police forces faced in improving rape investigations.
Subsequent contact by VAWGRN members offering to help snowballed into the nationally significant programme it became.
The networks are also highlighting hidden issues within their fields.
For instance, the DARNet Dialogues series of webinars has enabled conversations around a host of issues within domestic abuse, such as neurodivergent victims and honour-based abuse.
“The honour-based abuse webinar featured international speakers, and they were talking about issues like witchcraft, which I didn’t know so much about, but actually particularly for people emigrating to the UK these are issues where our practitioners are just not aware of culturally and how to support them,” Dr Stevens says.
For Professor Horvath, VAWGRN fosters a feeling of hope among like-minded people when issues such as women’s rights can feel like they are regressing in some climates more than anything.
“This kind of work can be very difficult and isolating, so the feeling that people can come away feeling hopeful, and that there are like-minded individuals they can work with, that for me is at the crux of what we do,” she adds.
Ultimately, the networks are a model for inclusive and informed research which responds to on-the-ground issues, with the voices of those who have been impacted the hardest able to have a vital input into studies that could help improve services for the future.
Head to the website pages here to find out more: VAWGRN | University of Suffolk and Domestic Abuse Research Network (DARNet) | University of Suffolk.
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