The Common Mission Project and ACE launch Hacking for Police at University of Hull

The University of Hull is Common Mission Project’s first university to run a “Hacking for Police” course, where teams of 4-5 students will learn and apply lean start-up methods to solving pressing problems facing frontline officers in national and regional law enforcement. 

This first-of-its-kind course will connect students to policing issues that include domestic abuse, reducing youth participation in gang activity and building public trust and confidence in local police forces.

The class, one in a series of mission-driven entrepreneurship™ education courses created by Common Mission Project (CMP), will be offered to final year undergraduate students in the University of Hull’s Department of Criminology and Sociology. The course will be taught by Professor Robert Dover and Dr Nicola O’Leary.  

Dr. O’Leary shares why she feels Hacking for Police is such an important course: “I am very excited and honoured to be part of the team delivering this exciting and innovative module for the first time in the UK.  

“‘Hacking for Police’ will facilitate our final year students to engage critically with a specific and complex policing problem where they will learn to work effectively as a team, demonstrate a strong professional ethos, and work to challenging deadlines and engaging in the real world of Criminal Justice problems and solutions.  

“These gains encourage sought-after graduate employability skills and levels of self-awareness as part of the toolkit for lifelong learning. This is my hope and expectation for all involved in this ground-breaking module and I am genuinely thrilled to be on this path of discovery with them.”

Professor Dover, Head of Criminology at Hull, said: “My colleagues and I are delighted to be working with the Common Mission Project UK, the Home Office, Leicestershire and Kent Police to bring this first Hacking for Police module to the UK. 

“We spend a lot of time as university educators aligning our teaching to the needs of our students’ future careers. The Hacking for Police initiative takes this turn to the professions a leap forward in allowing students to work on a real-world practitioner problem alongside the practitioner who owns the challenge or issue for their organisation. The Hacking for Police module also provides students with a tried and tested structured approach, from management sciences, to examining and working through problems which they can use across their future career in any sector. 

“This level of engagement with law enforcement professionals and the potential to create a real-world impact is a genuinely novel innovation in our field. Those taking the Hacking for Police module will also have a unique access to high level officials, who they will ultimately present their findings and solutions to: a nerve-wracking but ultimately rewarding experience that opens up an entirely new network of expert contacts for their post-graduation foray into the world of work.”

CMP is launching this pilot in partnership with the Accelerated Capability Environment (ACE), a Home Office unit that takes a highly innovative and disruptive approach to solving technology and data problems facing public sector agencies, primarily in law enforcement and national security.  

Jen Wallace, Deputy Head of ACE, said: "Diversity of thinking and experience is so important in finding new ways to look at existing problems. This project is a fantastic way to help drive real innovation to the front line and we look forward to mentoring these students and seeing the ideas they come up with."

Building a ‘Hacking for’ ecosystem

Hacking for Police is the latest in a series of mission-driven entrepreneurial academic classes taught worldwide to solve the critical challenges of our time ‑ from national security to natural disasters, from energy to the environment, from local issues to healthcare. The classes aim to engage students in helping to create solutions that make the world a better, safer place. 

The series got its start in the U.S., with Hacking for Defense, first offered at Stanford University in 2016 and now taught in over 50 universities across the U.S. as well as Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Local and Hacking for Homeland Security. In the UK, CMP delivers Hacking for MoD, Hacking for Police, Hacking for Sustainability and will continue to grow the course in other vectors such as healthcare and space. In Australia, CMP delivers “Hacking for National Security.”  

If you’d like to get involved as either a government sponsor, industry mentor or just want to have a chat about what we do, email us at: info@commonmission.uk