Social Work academic receives prestigious UKRI fellowship 

A Social Work academic from the University of Chester has received a coveted Future Leaders Fellowship by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). 

Dr Gill Buck has been named one of 68 of the most promising research leaders in the UK who will be funded a total of £104 million to lead research into global issues and commercialise their innovations in the UK. 

Gill’s research focuses on the criminal justice system. Her team will undertake the first major study of participatory criminal justice across the United Kingdom and Ireland.  

This work is urgent given the growing numbers of people cycling through systems of punishment. 11.5 million people are now imprisoned globally, and reoffending rates are high in most Western countries. In the UK alone reoffending costs around £18 billion annually.  

Innovation is needed to develop alternatives to bloated and ineffective penal systems. An area of promise is participatory criminal justice, where people draw on experiences of criminalisation to re-evaluate and co-deliver justice systems. These practices have the potential to help people leave crime behind and provide fresh solutions.  

In partnership with stakeholders, Gill will document historical and current approaches to co-produced criminal justice and use speculative design to explore future possibilities. 

Gill’s co-investigator is Dr Emma Murray, a Reader in the School of Justice Studies at Liverpool John Moores University and Criminologist in Residence at the Foundation of Art and Creative Technology (FACT, Liverpool). Emma’s work is dedicated to creative and engaged scholarship with justice-affected communities. She will facilitate arts collaborations and future focused elements of the project. 

Gill and Emma will be joined in the team by Visiting researcher Paula Harriott who is CEO of Unlock, a charity working to help people overcome the disadvantages caused by their criminal records. Previously, she worked as Head of Prisoner Involvement at the Prison Reform Trust and is known nationally as a lived experience leader. Paula will draw on pilot collaborations to facilitate lived experience consultations and co-investigations.  

Visiting researchers Kemi Ryan and Natasha Ryan are co-founders of Reformed Development CIC and will also collaborate on the project. They draw on lived experiences to provide community outreach and educational influence. Both have worked in local communities and universities, and on national panels, advancing community justice knowledge. They will collaborate with lived experience advisory teams to co-design research work. 

UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) flagship Future Leaders Fellowships allow universities and businesses to develop their most talented early career researchers and innovators and to attract new people to their organisations, including those from overseas. 

UKRI Chief Executive, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, said:

“UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships provide researchers and innovators with long-term support and training to develop ambitious, transformative ideas. The programme supports the research and innovation leaders of the future to transcend disciplinary and sector boundaries, bridging the gap between academia and business.” 

Gill said:

“It is a privilege to work on this important issue with this amazing team. I am very grateful to UKRI for this opportunity.”