Introducing the Centre of Excellence for Equities in Uniformed Public Services

The Centre of Excellence for Equities in Uniformed Public Services (CEEUPS) is a UKRI funded Centre which works closely with ARU’s Veterans and Families Institute for Military Social Research (VFI), Centre for Military Women's Research, and International Policing and Public Protection Research Institute (IPPPRI) to improve the experiences of those who work within the Uniformed Public Services.

We started our mission in September 2024 and are now made up of nine new academic positions, fractional research staff from VFI and IPPPRI and, importantly, four professional staff who are integral to our ethos.

We have a growing community of PhD students, and we are already delivering projects which are inclusive of practitioners who are working with us as co-researchers and policy fellows.

Why are we here?

The relationship between the uninformed public services and the communities they serve is at a critical juncture. There have been several reports focused on discrimination, wellbeing and practitioner mental health, rising rates of suicide, sexual harassment, bullying, racism, misogyny and core institutional failures across all the uniformed services.

Such publicity clearly risks negatively impacting on both public legitimacy and trust in these organisations externally, and the trustworthiness of the workplaces for those that work within them.

It is increasingly clear that there needs to be a more genuine focus on the systemic issues which impact on these profound and embedded problems. The role of CEEUPS is to be that critical friend as a centre focused entirely on advancing equity within these vital institutions in a transformational way.

The scale of the challenge

Inequity is a wicked problem that impacts way beyond our uniformed public services. It exists in society and translates into a wider number of institutions, including higher education. Uncomfortable truths about equities are often brought to light across uniformed public services.

Following shocking events involving a serving officer and the murder of Sarah Everard, The Casey Review exposed widespread institutional racism, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia within the Metropolitan Police Service.

The recent HMICFRS report on the handling of misconduct (2024); HMPPS professional standards review (2025); the perceived culture of everyday sexism in the paramedics and ambulance community, work completed by the Centre for Military Women here at ARU, and much more, indicate core and sustained issues with inequities in our services.

There is still a struggle in some of the services to recruit underrepresented groups, and there is new and emerging evidence that those who are neurodivergent face barriers to progression, access to learning, knowledge and appropriate support. Across all services, cultures of bullying and organisational silencing have created environments that prohibit psychological safety. This carries significant personal and professional risks.

These factors are not one-off or isolated incidents but are symptomatic of deeper, systemic issues that require transformational and sustained review. The roots of inequity in uniformed services trace back to their very origins. Police forces in many Western nations emerged from systems designed to maintain racial and class hierarchies. Military institutions, policing, and fire services historically excluded women and minorities from front line and leadership positions.

These exclusionary practices were not aberrations but foundational features that shaped organisational cultures for generations. The legacies of these origins persist in institutional memory, informal networks, and cultural norms that can resist change.

When organisational legacies exist, they can be hard to shift. Therefore, when organisational foundations are built on practices of exclusion and particular power relations, the achievement of genuine inclusion requires more than policy changes – it demands fundamental cultural transformation that many institutions have been unwilling or unable to undertake.

The culture of silence that protects institutional reputation can prevent the recognition of discriminatory practices. Speaking out about bias or harassment becomes an act of disloyalty rather than ethical and professional responsibility; this enables environments where inequity grows and is left unchecked.

Camaraderie and social identity within organisations that deal with volatile and traumatic issues can create bonds based on trust and dependence. Speaking out about behaviours deemed as unacceptable becomes labelled as disloyal, going against the pack and is isolating for the individual. Therefore, the creation of genuine inclusive and safe environments is immobilised.

CEEUPS and our mission

The objectives of CEEUPS are focused on genuine and authentic changes which impact at a practical and policy level. We want to create evidence-based reform for and with those that work in the services. We will bring together research knowledge and practitioners’ professional expertise to drive policy development and practical implementation.

Our research

We are currently developing a research strategy for CEEUPS which is based on both a wide review of existing reports and academic literature and consultation with those within the services. A stakeholder day held in February 2025, where we asked practitioners to describe to us what an equitable future might look like, highlighted the crossover of the issues and their longevity.

From our strategy (available in July 2025) we will conduct rigorous and inclusive research, grounded in the principles of trauma informed practice, to explore racial and gender equity, inclusion and neurodivergence and the issues that allow systemic bullying and inappropriate behaviours within uniformed contexts to remain.

Whilst our work, in the first instance, will focus on individual services, we have no intention of working in silos and want to learn from each of the services and provide a platform to share ideas that might be translated to other operational worlds.

By creating working groups with practitioners across the themes, we will create and manage opportunities for police, military, fire, prisons, paramedics, the ambulance and other uniformed public services to learn from each other's successes and failures. In a climate which needs to consider efficiencies we hope this will allow for a reduction in the level of fragmentation in approaches to change.

By developing these strong partnerships and collaborations with those who experience inequities, we will bind together the voices of academics (both nationally and internationally), the community, and practitioners who are involved in the public services. Bringing these voices into the research process will ensure that the unique cultural, operational, and structural factors that influence equity within uniformed organisations are fully integrated into our work at every stage.

Central to our plans is to shift knowledge created into processes that transfer and mobilise learning in useful ways which is co-designed with practitioners. The CEEUPS strategy and our research design will be firmly grounded in achieving impact and change. Practical tools and guidance, policy development and educational offers designed with practitioners will translate the work we do into real world change for those experiencing these inequities in their everyday lives.

To make a commitment to being as inclusive as we would like the services we work with to be, with CEEUPS funding we have built a space to enable the development of inclusive methodologies. In our brand-new Social Science Research Lab for equitable methods, we will use innovative methodologies, including art-based approaches, drama, serious games, then decolonialising and trauma informed, culturally sensitive, methodologies to challenge traditional extractive research methods.

We will deliver mutually beneficial research and put the voice of those we work with at the centre of what we do.

Why do we think a trauma-informed approach is important?

Trauma informed approaches consider the impact of institutional failure on marginalised groups. To carry the accumulated impact of exclusion, microaggressions, and overt discrimination throughout their careers regularly impacts and compounds decisions to leave, mental health and PTSD.

Similarly, those who have witnessed such behaviours fear speaking out due to the risk of being silenced or retaliated against. These individuals may experience severe moral injury that fundamentally alters their relationship with both their organisation and often themselves and wider social networks.

Often policies fail because the environment they are implemented in remain psychologically unsafe and are not coupled with methods to empower and enable the workforce to speak out. This is a core failure of preventative plans and, conversely, such failures often reinforce trauma and worsen the cycle.

Researchers working in this space need to recognise the trauma exposed world that these practitioners work within and be cognisant of it. These factors already place individuals in an environment that is likely to create health inequities. Integrating this knowledge and applying approaches that consider both the equity related trauma and the operational trauma that affects all service personnel will help build more genuinely equitable proposals.

What now?

Resistance to change and reform is a real issue in uniformed services. The fear of losing what has ‘always been done’ is threatening to solid and sustained systems and there can be strong resistance to even acknowledge that such inequity continues.

Current efforts to address equity, fairness and staff welfare in uniformed services are often transactional. Whilst these are usually well intended by the individuals who drive this change, they are often implemented in response to a key event or raised issue. These publicised initiatives present, at pace, to both internal and external audiences, a commitment and willingness to 'do something'.

However, interventionism often lacks a thorough evidence base, an understanding of where planned activities map to intended outcomes and, perhaps more importantly for our vision, a genuine willingness to consider the underlying cultural and systemic issues that allow these behaviours to continue. Indeed, even the tracking of progress is based on superficial, arbitrary metrics which usually fail to achieve genuine cultural transformation or understand people's experience of that change.

Furthermore, processes and policies are often designed without including the voices of those who experience inequity and discrimination. Hence, they remain based on a certain set of assumptions and ideas about needs that miss the unique issues that impact on diversity and its history within these services.

The challenges facing equities in our uniformed public services are significant, complex, and acknowledging them with genuineness is critical. They must not be left to transactional, ad hoc initiatives which can be uncoordinated and perceived as paying lip service to those experiencing inequity. Simply delivering training on these forms of bias will not work effectively.

It is only by actually hearing the workforce, challenging behaviours, holding people accountable and establishing and co-designing systems that support these requirements that things will really change with authenticity. CEEUPS will create focused, jointly developed expertise, and a sustained commitment to promote work aimed at delivering truly equitable services that reflect and celebrate the diversity of modern Britain.

Current activity

The CEEUPS team has started a range of targeted small projects with partners from across the services to explore issues such as psychological safety, sexual harassment, wellbeing, retention, peri-natal experiences, the impact of histories and access to learning and development. We are additionally developing a set of foundational methodological tools to enable the work we do to be inclusive, trauma informed and creative.

Our strategy soft launch is planned for July 2025 and our formal Centre launch is planned for September 2025. Our national partnerships are growing across all services, and we are building informal and formal relationships with international collaborations and public services.

Later in 2025, we will host our first CEEUPS webinar. Our events will be thematic and focused specifically on areas of our co-developed research strategy. We also intend to start disseminating quarterly newsletters containing updates about our activities later this year.

If you would like any further information on key areas of our work and/or you would like to join us in our mission, please contact [email protected]

Prof Emma Williams, Director, CEEUPS