UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has launched five Safer Streets Challenges backed by £50 million of funding, as part of the government's £500 million Research & Development Missions Accelerator Programme (R&D MAP).
This will bring together researchers, innovators, communities, policing and frontline practitioners to tackle the crimes that affect people's daily lives - using research and innovation to create solutions. The R&D challenges are part of the government's Safer Streets Mission, which aims to halve knife crime and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) within a decade, and to rebuild public confidence in policing and the criminal justice system. The five ambitious challenges will focus on the concentrations of crime - understanding where crime happens and the sort of crimes occurring.
As well as how we rebuild trust and confidence in policing, and confidence in the justice system, so communities trust that policing and justice works. The funding will also deliver research and innovation to tackle VAWG and knife crime, to help reduce these offences. The programme will fund new research and innovation across universities, businesses, public services, the voluntary sector and communities.
Each challenge is designed to build real evidence in real communities – shaped by people who know them best – so that what works can be scaled across the UK.
Five challenges, one mission:
Challenge 1: Concentrations of Crime and the Crime Map
Building on the Concentrations of Crime Data Challenge launched in August 2025, Phase Two will develop an AI-powered national crime map. The map will identify concentrations of knife crime, violence against women and girls, theft, retail crime and anti-social behaviour at street level across England and Wales.
This will allow the development and trialling of better designed and targeted pilots which will work with communities and aim to reduce local targeted crime by 30% initially focused on knife crime. These will bring together the hyperlocal data with problem-oriented policing, community interventions and emerging technologies. The interventions that prove effective will be made available for national scaling.
Challenge 2: Violence Against Women and Girls
Working with partners this challenge will fill critical VAWG evidence gaps, and deliver new interventions, tools and technology that will contribute significantly to prevention and intervention in violence against women and girls.
The focus will be on delivering a step-change in the identification and enhancement of protective factors for children and young people, in the safety and design of public and online spaces, and in the prevention, detection and disruption of economic abuse. The experience and voice of people with lived experience will be fundamental to the challenge, with investment in improving the experience of victims and survivors within the justice system.
Pilot interventions will aim to deliver a 20% reduction in VAWG and increase support for victims and survivors resulting in a 20% increase in retention in Criminal Justice System (CJS) processes within trials.
Challenge 3: Trust and Confidence in Policing
This Challenge will develop and trial new ways of measuring and understanding confidence and trust in policing and other agencies. New engaging and easy to use tools will be co-produced with communities, giving people greater voice and opportunities to share their experience and views.
Trials will put these new tools into action shedding new light on how police activity influences local trust and confidence. This could include the use of social media, how visible officers and volunteers are, the use of digital tools and efforts to engage, inform and support local communities. By 2027, three new dynamic public confidence measures will be developed — designed to be user-friendly, enable targeted audience measurement, and track changes in real time. Pilots in at least four areas will test innovations before national rollout of the approaches that work best.
Challenge 4: Confidence in Justice
Working closely with partners across government and industry, this challenge will support R&D to stop drones smuggling contraband into prisons – including phones, drugs and weapons. £6.5m UKRI funding was announced as part of the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit in Ukraine in January 2026, alongside MoJ and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service collaboration with UK Defence Innovation. The goal is to disrupt organised crime, reduce instability within prisons, and strengthen public confidence in the justice system.
Challenge 5: Knife Crime
This Challenge – part of the Government’s upcoming ‘Protecting Lives, Building Hope: A Plan to Halve Knife Crime’– will improve the methods and analytical tools available to identify and manage knife carriers that pose a high-risk to public safety.
Research will identify behavioural indicators for knife-carrying, develop approaches to manage those who carry knives habitually, and test technology-based detection in transport hubs, retail centres, and night venues. Findings will be shared with police forces, community partners, academics and what works centres, and the Voluntary sector, with the potential to develop new technologies and a new playbook of tactics to improve public safety.
People at the heart of the programme: With the right tools, the right research, and communities at the heart of the work, we can make every neighbourhood safer.
A distinctive feature of the Safer Streets R&D MAP is its commitment to working with communities. Community-led pilots will run across multiple challenge areas, shaped by people with lived experience, frontline practitioners, local authorities, and voluntary organisations. The Challenges will bring together researchers, police forces, schools, and community groups as active partners in designing and testing interventions in the places that need them most.
The Safer Streets R&D MAP aims to build on existing evidence and identify gaps, develop new tools and approaches, and ensure that what works in one community can be replicated in others. Victims and survivors, and community members will help shape the testing process. This ensures that those most affected by crime are the ones defining what meaningful change looks like in practice.
Science Minister Lord Vallance said: “Behind every crime statistic, is a story of somebody who has had their life affected, sometimes irreversibly, by a serious and distressing experience.
“It's so important that we do everything we can to help prevent harms from happening in the first place. We have an extraordinary research community in the UK, and this programme is about harnessing their innovation and expertise, backing them with dedicated Government funding, to help tackle these crimes and the problems they create in people's daily lives.
“By using world‑class research to find new solutions to reducing crime we can build safer streets and stronger communities right across the country.”
Gill Attrill, Challenge Director: Safer Streets Mission at UKRI, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to bring together expertise from across our communities to make all our lives safer.
“By combining lived experience and community insight with academic rigour, industry innovation, philanthropic investment, the skills and commitment of our police and community services we have a unique opportunity to make a difference. There will be no simple solutions, but a collective effort will be the key to making a step-change in reducing violence against women and girls, knife crime and anti-social behaviour and in building greater confidence and trust in our police and justice system.
“Creating safer streets means safer homes, safer communities and safer futures for all of us.”
Crime and Policing Minister Sarah Jones said: “Knife crime shatters lives and devastates communities, but we are beginning to turn the tide. Knife related homicides are down over 27%, hospital admissions are down, and more dangerous weapons are being taken out of circulation than ever before.
“This progress shows what can be achieved when we combine tough enforcement with early intervention and targeted support. But we know there is more to do. This new programme will build on that momentum, helping us identify knife carrying better in public spaces, intervene sooner, and deliver our mission to halve knife crime over the next decade.”
Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, Lord Timpson said: “Drones pose a serious threat to our prisons and national security, so it is essential we harness the best expertise and cutting-edge technology to tackle this challenge head on.
“The extra investment under this government will help bolster our capabilities to combat the gangs looking to exploit our prisons from the air and, alongside our work with the police, ensure more offenders are brought to justice.”
Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, Chair of National Police Chiefs' Council said: “The National Police Chiefs’ Council welcomes this major investment in the Safer Streets Mission. Communities deserve to feel safe in the places they live and work, and this programme will strengthen the evidence and tools available to policing to prevent harm more effectively.
“By working with partners across policing, research and communities, we can translate innovation into practical approaches that reduce violence, safeguard those most at risk and support safer, more confident communities.” UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the largest public funder of research and innovation in the UK, with a budget of around £9bn.
It is composed of seven disciplinary research councils, Innovate UK and Research England with a mission to advance knowledge, to improve lives and to deliver growth and they operate across the whole country and work with their many partners in higher education, research organisations, businesses, government, and charities.
