CENTRIC 3PO Project Wins Home Office Security & Policing Academic Innovation Award
At CENTRIC, we are extremely pleased to share that our 3PO project has been awarded the Home Office 2025 Security and Policing Academic Innovation Award. This prestigious award recognises cutting-edge capabilities and services that have significantly advanced the UK’s ability to prevent, respond to, reduce the impact of, or investigate risks and incidents. The award was presented at Security & Policing 2025, the UK Government’s global security event held at the Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre. Hosted by the Home Office’s Joint Security & Resilience Centre (JSaRC), the event serves as a world-class platform for industry leaders, government officials, and senior decision-makers in law enforcement and security sectors to discuss the latest advancements in national security and resilience.
3PO - Protecting public-facing professionals and their dependents online, is a 3-year project funded by UKRI under the Strategic Priorities Fund. It is part of the REPHRAIN network, a Research Centre of Excellence focused on the protection of citizens online. In this context, 3PO has taken the unusual and pioneering step to re-focus the theme of protecting citizens online to the law enforcement domain. The project aims to better understand the challenges, risks and harms police officers and their families face when they are online and to develop direct, sustainable solutions to protect this group from online harms, to safeguard their physical and mental wellbeing and ultimately to empower their full participation in the online domain.
Professor P. Saskia Bayerl, CENTRIC Head of Research and 3PO Project Lead, expressed her pride in this achievement:
“I am very proud of the work we have done with our academic and police partners to support the protection of police officers, staff, and their families online. 3PO shows how research can lead to positive real-life impacts to improve the safety and security of public-facing professionals.”
Whilst being led by CENTRIC, The 3PO project also involves leading researchers from the University of Oxford, Cambridge University, UCL, and Edinburgh Napier University, we have also worked closely with the Home Office and six UK police forces to bring this project to life.
Professor Babak Akhgar, Director of CENTRIC, emphasised the significance of achieving this award:
“This award is a testament to CENTRIC’s vision of delivering impactful research for security and policing. I am grateful for the continued support and collaboration from the Home Office and UK police forces, which has been instrumental in our success over the past 14 years.”
Find out more about the 3PO project here - https://3po-project.co.uk/