College of Policing Sexism and Misogyny in Policing Behavioural Change Fellowship
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: Soci & Political Scien, Philosop & Anthr
Abstract
Each fellowship will last up to 18 months to cover:
- 3-month inception phase for set up activity
- a 12-month placement with the host organisation
- an impact phase lasting up to 3 months
Fellows will co-design projects and activities with their host and produce analysis to inform government decision-making across a range of policy priorities. Fellows will also engage across the host organisation, building effective working relationships and supporting wider knowledge exchange with researchers.
This will be supported through their embedded role within the host organisation, including line management support.
- 3-month inception phase for set up activity
- a 12-month placement with the host organisation
- an impact phase lasting up to 3 months
Fellows will co-design projects and activities with their host and produce analysis to inform government decision-making across a range of policy priorities. Fellows will also engage across the host organisation, building effective working relationships and supporting wider knowledge exchange with researchers.
This will be supported through their embedded role within the host organisation, including line management support.
Organisations
| Description | I am unable to share at the moment as we are currently running the pilot study and key findings have yet to be ascertained. When the pilot is complete and the data is finalised, I will publish/analyse the key findings I produced as part of this fellowship. Until the publications are peer-reviewed, findings cannot be shared. |
| Exploitation Route | The Pulse Check is one of four integrated interventions being piloted in three police forces in a cluster randomised controlled trial. The pilot is being evaluated to assess effectiveness, which may support further roll out. |
| Sectors | Government Democracy and Justice |
| Description | The Pulse Check is one of four integrated interventions being piloted in three police forces in a cluster randomised controlled trial. The pilot is being evaluated to assess effectiveness, which may support further roll out. The impact of the main project in is anticipated to be initiated in autumn 2025 at the end of the pilot study (August 2025). |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Title | Pulse Check for Organisational Culture |
| Description | The Leading Inclusive Teams (LIT) Pulse Check is a research tool developed to address sexism, misogyny and racism and improve organisational culture in policing by leveraging a behavioural science approach. The Angiolini Inquiry, the Casey Report, and frequent media reports of misconduct and inappropriate behaviour by members of the police exemplify the need for improving police culture. The Pulse Check includes a short set of questions used to monitor local culture in relation to trust, fairness, and experiences of sexism, misogyny and racism. Each Pulse Check includes seven questions and takes less than 60 seconds to complete. These questions are asked every two weeks for a set duration of time so that problems can be identified sooner and acted on earlier. To protect anonymity for those answering sensitive questions, these individuals are put into pools based on their area of work in the organisation. The Pulse Check includes a dashboard, a visual interface that summarises data to help users understand and analyse information. Supervisors see a visualisation of the Pulse Check results for their pool accompanied by motivational messages to encourage them to take action on a monthly basis. The Pulse Check tool also includes a set of three 'Plan for Improving Team Culture' questions for supervisors about what actions they plan to commit to in response to the results. These results are collated into another dashboard for their line managers. This dashboard summarises the actions people are committing to and what support or resources they would like. Lastly, to encourage people completing the questions, the Pulse Check includes a Force dashboard on a monthly basis that shows the results across all respondents completing the Pulse Check in the force. The force dashboard also includes a high-level summary of the types of actions first-line supervisors have committed to completing based on the responses to the 'Plan for Improving Team Culture' questions. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The Pulse Check is one of four integrated interventions being piloted in three police forces in a cluster randomised controlled trial. The pilot is being evaluated to assess effectiveness for further roll out. |
| Title | Pulse Check Plan for Improvement pilot dataset |
| Description | The Pulse Check Plan for Improvement pilot dataset will include supervisor responses to the 'Plan for Improving Local Culture' questions asked each month for 6 months. These are three questions asking: 1) if the supervisor plans to take action in response to the latest results in the dashboard, 2) if so, what they plan to do, and 3) any support or resources requested of their line manager. Lastly supervisors are asked to select their line manager from a drop-down list. The data is not anonymous and includes the supervisors name in each record as well as the date and time the response was completed. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The impact will be ascertained at the end of the pilot when this data is used in the evaluation. As part of the process evaluation, we will also assess impact on the supervisors as well as their line managers who will be seeing the data visualisation in a dashboard (see research tools) on a monthly basis. |
| Title | Pulse Check pilot dataset |
| Description | The Pulse Check pilot dataset currently includes the responses to 2 of the 14 issued Pulse Checks being completed during a 6-month period. The Pulse Check includes questions about organisational culture as well as a mandatory question for respondents to select their police force from a drop-down list, and two voluntary questions to select their ethnicity and gender identity. The data includes this sensitive information and is recorded without any identifying information. Each record also includes the date and time the response was completed and which pool the respondent is in based on which survey they received. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The impact will be ascertained at the end of the pilot when this data is used in the evaluation. As part of the process evaluation, we will also assess impact on the supervisors, their line managers, and the respondents who will be seeing the data visualisation in dashboards (see research tools) on a monthly basis. |