Violence is a leading global cause of death and serious illness and injury of children, adolescents and adults. The task of reducing violence is therefore for health services, criminal justice agencies and other public services.

Through research and evidence based advocacy the Violence Research Group has brought about policy change and practical actions to reduce violence at local, national and international levels.  Since its establishment in 1996, the Group has and continues to:

• understand the causes and effects of violence and to produce real-world applications to prevent it;
• evaluate violence prevention initiatives, working with service providers - health agencies, social services, criminal justice agencies, local governments and third sector organisations;
• evaluate the effectiveness of interventions designed to reduce the psychological, social and economic impacts of violence; and
• translate effective innovations into local, national and international policy and practice.

The Violence Research Group draws on expertise from across Cardiff University. The strength and reputation of the group comes from its interdisciplinary research across the fields of psychiatry, public health, dentistry, criminal justice, police, psychology, materials science, computer science and economics; and its extensive record of innovation and contributions to policy and violence prevention.

Group members have published findings in more than 400 papers in leading journals, lead national and international research networks and have embedded violence prevention into university and medical Royal College syllabuses.

Achievements

• identifying previously unknown causes of violence;
• the creation of the Cardiff Violence Prevention Group and the Cardiff Model for Violence Prevention, an innovation comprising the sharing by hospital emergency departments of anonymised information with police, city governments and other bodies to achieve violence reduction – a model that has been adopted across the UK, in the Netherlands, the United States and in the Western Cape region of South Africa;
• evaluating interventions that aim to reduce violence;
• development of new rehabilitation programmes for victims and offenders;
• the genesis and co-development of the College of Policing, the Universities' Police Science Institute, the Probation Institute and co-authorship of the blueprint for the College of Teaching; and
• defining and developing evidence ecosystems across public services.

Collaborations

The Group collaborates with a range of external partners and organisations as well as the wider public. The Group's implementation partner, the WHO Cardiff Violence Prevention Group - a prototype safety partnership formed in 1996 - provides opportunities for prototype development, field trials, violence measurement and implementation of new evidence-based prevention interventions for the injured, victims, offenders and populations.