UNRISK students in discussion with policing staff
UNRISK PhD students from Leeds, UCL and Exeter contributed to a workshop on Future Policing on 3rd November 2026, held at Cloth Hall Court, Leeds.
Police staff had contacted UNRISK about engaging with the National Adaptation Plan 4, in which the police sector is included for the first time, with statutory responsibility for actions to deal with climate change impacts.
The event was developed in collaboration with TYP-ACE (The Yorkshire Policing Academic Centre of Excellence) funded by UKRI and the police, and hosted by the School of Law at Leeds.
After a keynote talk from Jason Lowe of the Met Office, round-table discussions took place with the group on each table dealing with a key theme: Crime, Emergencies, Operations and Infrastructure.
UNRISK students represented relevant topics from their PhD projects on e.g. communication of uncertainty, uncertainties around heatwave modelling, and catastrophe modelling of flood risk.
Police staff included representatives of North, South and West Yorkshire police, the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), West Yorkshire Local Resilience Forum (WYLRF) and Bluelight Commercial (police procurement).
The event was part of a series of engagement activities by the police, and will hopefully lead to some fruitful research collaborations. It was also an excellent engagement opportunity for students to discuss climate change impacts, risks and uncertainty with stakeholders who have to make big decisions using climate data, under real-world pressures.
