Open Research in Criminal Justice (IE0055)

Brief Description of the Commitment

This project will involve creating an open research partnership with criminal justice researchers, policymakers, oversight bodies, agencies, third sector criminal justice services for victims, offenders and communities, civil society and minority advocacy bodies, and research infrastructure which will provide the structure and opportunities to agree a framework for: (a) co-creating open research and a culture which supports this; (b) exchanging and applying knowledge openly across the sector; (c) using research to inform criminal justice policy and practice in Ireland; and (d) determining collectively how to coordinate and embed a culture of open research among criminal justice researchers and in the criminal justice sector in a locally appropriate way.

Problem Definition

1. What problem does the commitment aim to address? Criminal justice has not been a significant focus in discussions about open research in Ireland. This has implications for policy makers, academia and civil society. Bringing partners together to agree a framework for open research in criminal justice in Ireland will be a first step in building relationships and enabling planning for new collaborative research to support law, policy and practice development. The theme of open data, research and evidence arose clearly through the public consultation and the civic society and Round Table engagement process carried out to support the development of NAP4. This commitment will contribute to addressing the need for open data and research strengthening transparency and participation.

2. What are the causes of the problem? Criminal justice is underrepresented in open research discussions and with Irish criminal justice in a period of change, it is timely to develop an open research culture to help provide further evidence base to inform these changes.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem? Some small studies have been state funded including collaborative funding involving the Department of Justice, the Policing Authority and the Irish Research Council, but some have been limited in their openness. The Department of Justice, Probation Service, Courts Service, Policing Authority and other stakeholders have begun to establish specific, albeit ad hoc and partially open for research discussions.

2. What solution are you proposing? This project plans to bring together a broad and varied group of research and criminal justice stakeholders and provide a national level platform to determine collectively how to develop open research in an applied, interdisciplinary field. By bringing together an interdisciplinary group, the project will develop an open research network that is able to examine collectively how to advance open research on criminal justice in Ireland, in a way that sustains after the lifespan of the project. The project proposes to bring partners together in workshops to contribute to a series of outputs that will establish how academics and other stakeholders can, and will, work together to stimulate and embed open research relating to criminal justice in the coming years. All partners will be invited to contribute to the project at every stage, including the design and delivery of workshops and the development of written outputs. The National Open Research Forum is funding the initial stage of the partnership and the funding will cover a study of related partnerships in other countries to inform the development and sustainability of the partnership.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment? This project will: • create a diverse partnership that will build understanding and relationships between the research, policy and practice communities with a view to co-creating and agreeing a framework for building a culture of open research in criminal justice in Ireland, including identifying principles, priorities and actions; • raise awareness of the nature, importance and application of open research with stakeholders beyond academia (e.g. policymakers and practitioners); and • promote interdisciplinary working between people involved in open research on criminal justice in Ireland.

Commitment Analysis

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? This partnership represents one of the largest to date to involve such a broad group of stakeholders in co-creating an approach to research collaboration. In addition, the communities and stakeholder groups to which this project is directly relevant will be represented as project partners.

2. How will the commitment help foster accountability? The findings of this project will be of interest to academics working across all disciplines who are interested in partnership working to develop applied, policy-relevant approaches to open research in their areas. The project involves an international study to identify best practice in open research partnerships on criminal justice, which will be disseminated widely to support those who wish to develop partnership working in other policy areas. The lessons from the partnership itself will be disseminated to those who might be interested in developing open research partnerships to influence policy and practice in other public and social policy fields, such as open research and social policy scholars.

3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? The communities and stakeholder groups to which this project is directly relevant will be represented as project partners. They are: Group 1: Early, mid and advanced career and postgraduate criminal justice researchers in disciplines across social sciences and humanities (criminology, law, psychology, education, social policy, social work, anthropology, design innovation, equalities, ethics and sociology) and from numerous universities and technological universities across Ireland. Group 2: Criminal justice policymakers, including government departments. Group 3: Criminal justice oversight bodies relating to policing and prisons. Group 4: Criminal justice agencies working right across the criminal justice process. Group 5: Third sector criminal justice services for victims, offenders and communities. Group 6: Civil society and minority advocacy bodies. Group 7: Research infrastructure, including funders and research support professionals.

Commitment Planning (Milestones | Expected Outputs | Expected Completion Date)

Conduct a study on open research partnerships in criminal justice; publish a working paper and open access article on the findings. Deliver three workshops with partners from all stakeholder groups represented. Co-create a set of agreements with partners to be published as a working paper and open access article. Disseminate findings at European criminology, European open research and Irish social policy conferences, and write for Irish national media and European higher education outlets.

Phase 1 Draft project plans and circulated for feedback. Complete consortium agreement and submit to National Open Research Forum (NORF). Engage and support the research assistant undertaking the study exploring open research partnerships in criminal justice. Plan and organise Workshop 1. | End January 2024

Phase 2 Deliver Workshop 1. Collate and analyse the outcome and circulate draft ‘principles of engagement’ document for feedback. Plan and organise Workshop 2. | March 2024

Phase 3 Deliver Workshop 2, collate and analyse outcomes. Publish first working paper on study of international partnerships with Maynooth University Social Science Unit (MUSSI) and develop an article for an open access journal. Plan and organise Workshop 3. | April 2024

Phase 4 Deliver Workshop 3, collate and analyse outcomes. Circulate draft open research framework, priorities and action plan for feedback, with final version included as an agreement in the second working paper and publish with MUSSI. Using open-authorship approach disseminate findings through publication and presentations and explore other dissemination opportunities. | July 2024

Write and submit final report to NORF. | September 2024

Action Plan Review

Commitment 2. Open Research in Criminal Justice

Commitment 2 plans to support open research on the criminal justice system. However, it lacks milestones that ensure the research is used by government in practice. The commitment’s potential for results could be strengthened by adding milestones to support government uptake of research recommendations to improve access to justice. Based on the research process, the government could also take steps to improve public access to criminal justice data.