Welcome to the Violence and Society Centre

Violence is not inevitable, but shaped by society. The Centre improves data to build theory and explanation, evaluate policy and interventions, to achieve our ultimate aim to reduce violence and the harm it causes.

The Violence and Society Centre is interdisciplinary and international. Staff are in the School of Policy and Global Affairs, including Sociology and International Politics, the School of Health and Psychological Sciences and the City Law School. The Centre engages with data providers and data users to develop professional practice and policies, both nationally and internationally. The Centre holds research grants, supervises PhDs, and runs seminars and conferences.

The major themes are:

• Theory: Developing a theory of change.
• Data: Improving measurement practices and developing a new measurement framework to integrate fragmented data.
• Explanation: Analysing connections and causal pathways linking violence and multiple intersecting inequalities, including gender.
• Evaluation: Investigating the impact and effectiveness of professional practice, policies and laws across criminal justice, civil justice, specialised services and health.
• Change: What is the future of violence?  What causes change? Can we imagine moving towards ‘zero violence’?

VISION: Violence, Health and Society

The VISION Consortium is a multidisciplinary partnership between City, University of London, King's College London, University College London, Lancaster University, University of Bristol, Warwick University and Public Health Wales, and has been awarded £7m funding from the UKRI/MRC/PRP to investigate Violence, Health and Society (October 2021 – September 2026). The team of researchers and experts engage with multiple public and Third Sector professionals and practitioners who generate data on and related to violence in the crime and health fields, and with national and international governmental bodies that use the data.