Cardiff University's Violence and Society Research Group was among the winners of a Queen's Anniversary Prize for excellence in higher education, at a ceremony at St James's Palace, London recently. Her Majesty the Queen will present the award to the University at Buckingham Palace in February.
The research into violence, alcohol and late-night safety has been translated into practical action to tackle late-night injuries in city centres. The Director of the Violence and Society Research Group is Jonathan Shepherd, Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Cardiff University's School of Dentistry and a member of the BDJ's Board of Advisers. It was his early career research into the rates of alcohol-related facial injuries treated in the NHS which led him to focus his research on violence.
Professor Jonathan Shepherd is Director of the Violence and Society Research Group and Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Cardiff University's School of Dentistry
Professor Shepherd said, 'I first became concerned about this issue as a young surgeon treating the victims of facial injuries every week. It seemed amazing that many cases I saw were not being reported to the police. Over the years, my colleagues and I have worked to find practical solutions from health-based research. It is a great privilege to receive this award, and hugely encouraging for our continuing work with our partners locally, nationally and internationally in preventing community violence.'
A key part of winning the award was the group's work in setting up the prototype Crime Reduction Partnership in Cardiff in 1996. Academics, health professionals, South Wales Police and Cardiff Council worked together to identify violence hot-spots.
In this period, Cardiff became the safest city of its size in the UK. Following Government legislation, many other communities have now adopted Cardiff's partnership model, now known in Wales as Community Safety Partnerships.
Other key achievements by the group include the use of anonymised accident and emergency data to identify trends in late-night violence, new programmes of care for violence victims at every stage of their treatment, including a new service for post traumatic stress, and research on 'glassing' injuries which has led to the introduction of toughened glass and plastic vessels in pubs and nightclubs.
