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COMPOSITE - COmparative POlice Studies In the EU

COMPOSITE - COmparative POlice Studies In the EU

From 29 May until June 1 2012, participants in the international, interdisciplinary research project “Comparative Police Studies in the EU” (COMPOSITE) will attend a meeting that marks the halfway milestone of the project. COMPOSITE aims to provide police forces across Europe with knowledge and instruments that will help them face current and future challenges. The meeting will be held in Ohrid, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and is hosted by the St. Clement of Ohrid University.

The meeting will be addressed by:

• H.E. Gjorgje Ivanov, President of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• Ms. Violeta Andonovska, State Secretary of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• Dr. Gabriele Jacobs, Co-ordinator of COMPOSITE, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
• Prof. Zlatko Zoglev PhD, Rector of the St. Clement of Ohrid University

During the meeting the future activities of the project will be discussed. In the coming year, COMPOSITE will conduct a comparative analysis of the planning and execution of change processes, focusing on the impact of leadership, professional and organisational identities and societal expectations. In addition, COMPOSITE will develop a number of practical instruments that can be directly utilised by the police forces; such as a toolbox containing instruments for training and consultancy, and an “ Annual European Police force monitor” that will help to plan and execute change initiatives in order to respond to known and yet unknown challenges and opportunities.

Some of the results to date of the photo project that is incorporated in the COMPOSITE project will be presented.

About COMPOSITE:

The international, interdisciplinary research project “Comparative Police Studies in the EU” (COMPOSITE) is a comparative study of organisational change in police forces across Europe.

Police forces in the EU face serious challenges. Integration in the EU has increased the need for cross-force collaboration, and technology has created new opportunities for criminals, but also for the police. Changes in the public opinion and in political expectations have created extra challenges. Responses to these challenges and exploitation of opportunities require major changes to the culture and structure of police forces. But the way these changes need to be implemented differs from one country to another because of cultural, organisational, societal, regional, ethnic, and religious diversity. COMPOSITE will deliver results that can be used by the police forces to improve the planning and execution of change initiatives in the police, showing how these projects can be better aligned with the cultural and societal context per country, and explaining how negative process effects can be mitigated. A further aim is to improve both the individual police organisations in each country and joint European capabilities.

This four year project started on August 1, 2010 and involves research partners from Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The fifteen participating organisations include universities, business schools, police academies, technical research institutes and a consultancy organisation. To ensure that the academic research results will find their way into daily practice, twenty-five police forces from the participating countries are actively involved in the research and in the dissemination phases of the project and they intend to use the results. The project is partially funded by the European Commission in the context of its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for Security Research.

In addition to the scientific work COMPOSITE invited two photographers, David Adams and Hans van Rhoon, to realise two separate bodies of work reflecting the comparative spirit of the research project. They will create images of police forces in the ten participating countries. David Adam’s work will be based on typologies, showing police facilities, as well as a portrait series. Hans van Rhoon will make a documentary style series based on police activity in the field. The photos that are distributed with this press release, represent a first impression of photographs taken in five of the ten participating countries.  These photographs may be used for editorial purposes, and can be downloaded from www.composite-project.eu/index.php/press.html.

Contact:

Dr. Gabriele Jacobs, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) on +31 10 4082061 or by email at gjacobs@remove-this.rsm.nl. More information about the project can also be found at www.composite-project.eu