Research output per year
Research output per year
Dr
Room 01.006 - 1 College Park East
United Kingdom
Accepting PhD Students
PhD projects
Police, policing, police reform, police accountability crime, criminology, restorative justice,
Research activity per year
Appointed by the Justice Minister as Independent Expert Advisor to the Reviewer of the Northern Ireland Policing Board (2024), see: https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/news/long-launches-review-northern-ireland-policing-board
Review published by the Minister for Justice on 30th January 2025: https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/news/minister-long-receives-policing-board-independent-review available here: https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2025-01/final-report-nipb-jan.pdf
Appointed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stop and search working group regarding children and young people (2021)
Formerly on the Executive of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) 2018 - 2023
John has over 15 years cumulative experience beyond academia working in the voluntary/community, statutory and NGOs sector in Northern Ireland covering human rights, ex-offenders, and community-based restorative justice.
He has formerly been the Programme Director for Criminology within QUB and between 2020-2023 was the Director of Undergraudate Education for SSESW.
John is a senior lecturer in criminology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, with research specialising in the area of policing.
To date, he has worked on a variety of research, consultancy and advisory roles with all the major policing institutions in Northern Ireland. This includes experience of engaging and working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Policing Board, and the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern.
In addition, he has also acted as an Independent member of the Belfast Policing and Community Safety Partnership.
John has published widely in the area of policing, with particular focus on police stop and search powers, community policing, police reform, public order policing and paramilitarism.
Previous Grant Successes:
Awarded £30,000 CI on award from the NI Community Relations Council as part of multi-disciplinary team to publish the Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report
Awarded £74,000 as PI from British Academy Advanced Newton Fellowship Fund to collaborate with Federal University Sao Paolo, Brazil on police reform
CI on EU COST Networking Grant CA17102 'Police Stops' involving 45 parnters across EU universities exploring the use of police 'stop and search' powers (c.€400,000).
Awarded £60,306 co-investigator as part of successful multidisciplinary Ulster University team on EU HORIZON 2020 GAP ‘Gaming for Peace’ bid lead by Trinity College, Dublin (Jan. 2016)
Awarded £165,000 co-investigator as part of successful multidisciplinary University of Ulster team on EU HORIZON 2020 FCT10 bid worth total of 4.9m Euros (June 2015)
Awarded £15,000 consultancy from INTERCOMM IRELAND for examining engagement of young people with PSNI (December 2014)
Awarded £2850 consultancy from Belfast City Council Community Safety Unit to design a survey tool for the Belfast Policing and Community Safety Partnership for policing and community safety issues (March 2014)
Awarded £10,000 across two tenders from the Northern Ireland Policing Board to examine issues related to confidence in Police Service of Northern Ireland: "The key drivers of public confidence in policing in NI" and "The influence of politicians, community leaders and the media has on confidence in the police in NI" (February 2014)
Awarded £2935.50 consultancy from Police Service of Northern Ireland for supervising intra-organisational research by police officers (May 2014)
Principle Investigator: Awarded £20,000 tender from the Police Service of Northern to research public order policing (joint bid with Institute for Conflict Research) (April 2012)
Co - Investigator: Awarded £6000 tender to examine community safety policy and the Policing Community Safety Partnerships from Belfast Conflict Resolution Consortium (September 2011)
Awarded £4500 tender/teaching contract from PSNI to deliver two day criminology short course for senior PSNI officers: ‘Enhancing Policing: A Criminology of Crime and Society’ (PUP107) (March 2012)
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report
Research output: Working paper › Discussion paper
Topping, J. (Recipient), 29 Mar 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Topping, J. (Recipient), 18 Apr 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Topping, J. (Reviewer)
Activity: Consultancy types › Work on advisory panel to industry or government or non-government organisation
Topping, J. (Keynote speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
Topping, J. (Invited speaker)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
Topping, J. (Advisor)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Public lecture/debate/seminar
Corda, A. (Organiser), Phelps, M. S. (Invited speaker), Loader, I. (Invited speaker), Cobbina-Dungy, J. (Invited speaker) & Topping, J. (Invited speaker)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Topping, J. & Sweeney, P.
30/01/2025
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Research
12/09/2024
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities
31/05/2022
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Expert Comment
20/05/2022
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Expert Comment
31/03/2022
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Expert Comment