An interdisciplinary team at the University has been awarded £625,000 through UKRI’s R&D Missions Accelerator Programme to lead RISE: Research into Intervention, Safety and Empowerment. The project responds to a pressing national challenge, with violence against women and girls (VAWG) remaining widespread and underreported within homes and public spaces.

Hosted by SPRITE+, SALIENT and NSEC, RISE will support the UK Government’s Safer Streets Mission and ambitions to halve VAWG within the next decade.

By connecting insight from partners and policymakers with expertise from researchers including Professor Rose Broad, Dr Caroline Miles, Professor David Gadd and Dr Reka Solymosi, the project aims to turn cutting-edge research into meaningful, real-world impact, an ambition laid out in the ‘Research excellence to impact’ Leap of the From Manchester for the world strategy.

The project will focus on four team‑led research projects covering primary prevention (working with men and boys), women’s safety in public spaces, management of domestic abuse perpetrators and child-parent homicides. RISE will also provide grant funding of up to £50,000 to enable researchers and practitioners across policing, third sector and policymaking to collaborate and pilot new approaches.

By taking an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, RISE shows how research can help address complex social issues and support more effective responses for those affected by violence and abuse.

Professor Rose Broad, project lead, said: “Gender‑based violence and abuse remains a reality for far too many people at home, in public and increasingly online. Through the RISE project we’re addressing a range of VAWG issues and looking at the many ways violence and abuse show up in people’s lives, recognising that these harms don’t look the same for everyone.”

Find out more about the project.