Dr Liz Aston

Liz is the Director of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and an Associate Professor of Criminology.

She is on the International Advisory Board for the N8 Policing Research Partnership and a member of various Police Scotland external reference groups. She has a strong record of collaborative research on policing both in Scotland and in Europe, and is experienced in knowledge exchange and building strong research-practitioner relationships.

Until June 2018 she was Head of Social Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University, and Depute Programme Leader for the MSc Applied Criminology and Forensic Psychology. Prior to joining Edinburgh Napier University in 2011, Liz held a Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) Postdoctoral Research position at the Centre for Criminal Justice and Police Studies, the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). She has also worked as a Researcher at the Medical Research Council’s Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow. My ESRC CASE award PhD was linked to ‘The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime’.

Her research interests centre on intersections between criminal justice and other policy areas such as health, e.g. policing and substance use. She has conducted research on the relationship between substance use and offending; community policing; stop and search; local policing in Scotland; and youth diversionary projects. Liz is interested in developing work on local policing, public confidence, visibility and engagement (including online) and the role of technology in policing.