News

The new Openlearn Policing Practice and Leadership Hub is now fully available for members to use. Openlearn is our learning platform that offers open access free learning resources. 

These resources range from short articles & podcasts through to structured online courses that typically take 2-6 hours to complete.

2024 marks 10 years of Policing at the OU, including the launch of the Centre for Policing Research and Learning.

To celebrate the many achievements in research, partnership, learning, education and knowledge into practice, CPRL are having an exciting schedule of online and in- person events throughout the year.

As announced at the CPRL Membership Group meeting on Thursday 07 March we are delighted to have launched the CPRL Small Grants Pilot Scheme following approval at the membership group meeting in December 2023.

The Department for Policing have recently launched Understanding PCSO powers, a new course on OpenLearn, The Open University's free online learning platform.

In November we reported on the launch of the new CPRL Collaborative Launch of CPRL Collaborative to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and research across the OU with CPRL members | Centre for Policing Research and Learning (open.ac.uk). We are pleased to include the programme for the year below, which is open to both OU academics interested in research issues relevant to policing and to CPRL policing partners.  

A new criminal offence for pet abduction has taken a significant step forward on 19 January 2024 with the announcement of government backing for new legislation. 

As part of Operation Soteria Bluestone we are deploying our highly successful Learning & Wellbeing Survey again in February 2024 to understand your perspectives on a range of issues related to your force’s current learning and development (L&D) approaches to equipping you with the knowledge and skills to undertake or support RASSO investigations.

We are delighted to announce the launch of a series of articles on the Open University’s ‘Open Learn’ site about the Trauma-Informed investigation of rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO).

Dr Ahmed Kadry and Simon Hull, who both work in the Department for Policing at The Open University (OU), have recently finished a project that evaluated OU policing apprentice's experiences of learning in a virtual reality (VR) courtroom.