‘Research can help make Ireland the safest country in the world’
Writing in eolas Magazine, Ian Marder, Associate Professor in Criminology at Maynooth University, discusses how the Criminal justice Open Research Dialogue (CORD) Partnership can help the sector leverage new and existing research to deliver better public services.
Does increasing police officer numbers reduce crime or the fear of crime? Or is this a question of how they are working and the relationships they build? Can supervised injection facilities reduce harm to local residents, as well as to people who use drugs?
If we could find additional resources for violence prevention, what gives us the biggest ‘bang for our buck’? How do we support victims to recover after serious crime? And what do we know about the impact of mentoring, social skills training, police-led diversion, and post-custody resettlement programmes on youth offending?
These are questions of vital importance to Ireland. In 1983, comparative criminologist Freda Adler included Ireland in Nations Not Obsessed with Crime. For years, Ireland bucked the trends of our Anglo-American neighbours, keeping imprisonment rates relatively low and criminal justice policy relatively insulated from electoral politics.
Now, although just 2 per cent of voters cited crime as the most important issue in exit polls following the 2024 general election, harrowing incidents continually capture the public and political discourse. A September 2026 Central Statistics Office survey found that people are increasingly worried about becoming victimised. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration is working through a packed schedule of high-stakes legislation and capital investment.
In a context where public concern about safety is high and our justice system is rapidly changing, we need instant access to the best available knowledge about how to prevent crime and respond effectively when it happens. Fortunately, we have decades of research from around the world that can inform policy and practice.
However, this assumes that the research is available at a time and in a format that it can be used. In reality, we often lack the time and the contacts to find the right information, ask the right people the right questions, and make the most of each other’s expertise. A dedicated structure is required to build relationships and facilitate knowledge exchange among research, policy, and practice.
Research-policy-practice engagement
Ireland’s criminal justice research capacity has grown, both in research-performing organisations and in the criminal justice sector. However, our infrastructure for connecting research, policy, and practice remains underdeveloped.
The CORD Partnership is a research-policy-practice partnership, providing a dedicated resource for all those who wish to collaborate to design, develop, and use research for the benefit of society. Since it was established in 2024, CORD has played a unique, innovative role; building bridges and creating opportunities to share knowledge and strengthen cooperation.
CORD brings together 61 organisations working across the criminal justice sector with the aim of “supporting positive social change by embedding a culture of open research in criminal justice in Ireland”. We do this by building relationships and trust, providing a platform for dialogue, and supporting collaborative research.
CORD partners are from a range of sectors, organisation types, and professional backgrounds. We work with over 70 researchers from at least 17 disciplines and 18 research institutions, as well as six government departments and national policymaking bodies, 10 criminal justice agencies and oversight bodies, and numerous community-based organisations.
This is not about universities and criminal justice agencies trying to tell each other what to do. It is a space for open conversations about what we find important, and how we can share knowledge to help society. It is about understanding each other’s working environments better so we can find ways to collaborate that respect each other’s boundaries.
Co-creating a plan for engagement
Most research is not formatted to permit its use. We often fail to identify the practical implications of our findings and lack the relationships and the understanding of policy and practice settings to ensure our work can benefit society. This gap in ‘research translation’ requires academics to learn more about the pressures and working environments of the organisations we study.
Likewise, public bodies and charities often lack the resources to identify and use research in their work. Especially if organisations are security focused, it can be difficult to build a learning culture involving external, open engagement. This is why CORD co-created a set of working principles so that everyone can feel more comfortable working together. The principles include connecting and discussing criminal justice on an equal footing, respecting each other’s skills and knowledge, and understanding each other’s capacities and constraints.
Based on these principles, the Department of Justice hosted a workshop to devise an action plan. We now have schemes through which organisations can seek syntheses of research, individuals can undertake study visits to other agencies, and researchers can receive mentoring and support to communicate the practical implications of their work.
All activities are designed to ensure that they do not compromise researchers’ independence or agencies’ operational responsibilities. At the same time, we helped build partnerships between government departments, researchers, and charities to work on applied projects of major societal importance and helped researchers to get evidence-based recommendations into Oireachtas Committee reports.
Into 2027, we will continue to deliver programmes that work well and pilot support mechanisms for organisations to develop their areas of research interest. We can also be contacted by anyone working in criminal justice to support the use of research and data for the public good.
Benefitting from research into the future
This is not to say there are easy answers. Preventing and responding to intimate partner violence, for example, requires different methods than youth violence. But we must start from the idea that preventing crime and helping victims are important enough to require attention to evidence.
CORD itself is deeply informed by evidence. Our activities are underpinned by learning from visits to police research partnerships in England and Scotland, workshops on research translation, and a review of best practice in partnership establishment.
Change moves at the speed of trust. So much can be gained from open conversations with people who look at the same problems from different angles. Through these conversations, existing data and research can be leveraged. We can engage in dialogue to help each other tease out problems, interpret complex information, and co-create activities of mutual interest and social benefit. With the support of sectoral leaders, we can work together to move the needle.
After all, why should we aim for anything less than to be the safest country in the world?
Ian Marder has been an Associate Professor in Criminology at Maynooth University since 2018.
