Dr Lis Bates
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Lis researches violence against women and girls including domestic and sexual violence, forced marriage and honour-based abuse. Much of her work focuses on policing and justice responses, in both national and international contexts. With a feminist lens, her work aims to improve services for victims/survivors, hold perpetrators accountable, and improve policy and legal responses. Lis uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as specialising in secondary data analysis of police and agency case file data.
Lis is a Reader in the Connect Centre for International Research on New Approaches to Prevent Violence and Harm. In this role, she leads and collaborates with academic colleagues in the Connect Centre and beyond on research projects to tackle violence against women and girls. She works closely with police and third sector services to improve responses to domestic abuse, sexual violence and honour-based abuse. She is seconded part-time to the Vulnerability, Knowledge and Practice Programme leading research for the police on domestic homicide and suspected victim suicide after domestic abuse. Lis’s teaching responsibilities include supervision of PhD students, Professional Doctorate students and Masters’ students.
Lis came to UCLan from the Open University where she was Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Policing Research and Learning and set up a research programme on violence against women and girls and policing. Before this, she was Research Fellow at the University of Bristol Centre for Gender and Violence Research, where she also completed her PhD in 2017 on honour-based abuse.
Lis came to academia from a policy background, with experience across the public and NGO sectors. She spent eight years as a policy advisor to parliamentary select committees (Home Affairs and Education) and for the Home Office and Cabinet Office before joining national domestic abuse charity SafeLives as Head of Research and Evaluation.
Lis’s research interests span different forms of gendered violence and abuse, policing and justice systems in national and international contexts. She is most excited by applied research which prioritises learning for practitioners, policy-makers and involves survivors and their advocates.
- PhD Social Policy, “Honour-based abuse: Who does what to whom?”, University of Bristol, 2017
- MSc Social Work Research, University of Bristol, 2010
- BA (Hons) Classics, Oxford University, 2004
- Violence against women and girls
- Domestic abuse
- Sexual violence
- Honour-based abuse
- Forced marriage
- Domestic homicide
- Suicide after domestic abuse
- Policing and justice
- Health responses to domestic abuse
- Survivor voices in research
- Safeguarding victims and survivors
- International research
- Cross-cultural perspectives on violence against women and girls
- Mixed methods research including qualitative, quantitative and case file analysis
- Academic Advisory Group Member, National Violence Against Women and Girls Taskforce
- Critical Reader for HMICFRS/College of Policing/IOPC Police Supercomplaints
- Goodwill Ambassador for the national Honour Based Abuse Research Matrix
- Advisory Board Member, SARA project on migrant women and domestic abuse, Finland
- Visiting Fellow, Centre for Policing Research and Learning
- Associate Editor, Journal of Gender Based Violence
- Associate Fellow, Higher Education Academy
Completed projects
Current projects can be found under 'Research Projects'
- 2019-2020: Improving International Policy responses to honour-based violence and abuse (PI). An ESRC Fellowship, this project involved a comparative policy analysis of state responses to honour-based violence and abuse across the UK, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden. A desk-based literature review was combined with site visits to all 5 countries and 100 informal interviews with key informants across policy-making, policing, academia, social work and third sector services.
- 2010-2017: PhD study, Honour based abuse in England and Wales: Who does what to whom? Lis’s PhD analysed 1,500 cases of honour-based abuse and forced marriage in the UK to develop a typology of abuse based on the relationship(s) between victims and perpetrators.
- 2018-2019: Drive Evaluation of Perpetrator Programme for Domestic Abuse (Researcher). Part of the academic team evaluating the Drive intervention. Drive is an innovative response to domestic abuse that aims to reduce the number of child and adult victims by disrupting and changing perpetrator behaviour. http://driveproject.org.uk/about/research-evaluation/
- 2018-2019 Reprovide RCT Evaluation of behaviour change programmes for perpetrators of domestic abuse (Researcher). Researcher on the Reprovide study, recruiting men to both the perpetrator group programme intervention and control arm, carrying out surveys and interviews with both men and their partners, and analysing police and other study data.
- 2017-2018: Addressing Sexual Violence Against Refugee Women (Co-I). A five-country EU collaboration developing and delivering training for front-line practitioners on how to identify and help refugee women experiencing sexual violence.
- 2016-2018: Justice, Inequality and Gender-Based Violence (Researcher). This project interviewed over 250 victims/survivors of abuse and analysed 1500 police case files to ask what 'truly victim-centred justice' would look like for victims/survivors. Lis researched across two workstreams: Stage 2 on collection, coding and analysis of hundreds of police case data on rape and domestic violence; and Stage 3 on interviewing, coding and thematically analysing 250 victims/survivors about experiences and views of justice. She was seconded to national organisation End Violence Against Women to write policy briefings drawing on the project’s findings.
- 2015: Victims' Voices: Honour Based Violence and Policing (Co-I). An HMIC-commissioned evaluation of victims' experiences of reporting HBV, forced marriage and FGM to the police.
Prior to 2015, Lis led research for national domestic abuse charity Safelives evaluating support services for adult and child victims of domestic abuse. These included Themis, a research evaluation of hospital-based domestic abuse advocates; the national Insights and Children’s Insights programme to embed outcome measurement across the domestic abuse sector; and an evaluation of Safelives’ Young People’s Programme reaching 15,000 young people at risk of abuse or exploitation. Lis also led an evaluation of the impact of the Gender Act 2014 on international development aid and gender equality on behalf of Plan International and The GREAT Initiative.
Use the links below to view their profiles:
- The Connect Centre for International Research on New Approaches to Prevent Violence and Harm
- UCLan Criminal Justice Partnership
- The Open University Centre for Policing Research and Learning
- Victim-survivor (dis)engagement from police in domestic abuse and rape cases (Principal Investigator; 2020-2022)
- In partnership with six police forces and The Open University, Lis leads a team of five researchers to understand the profile, reasons for, and implications of victim withdrawal from police and criminal justice processes in domestic abuse and rape cases (Crime Outcome 16) and recommend measures to improve victim engagement and reduce withdrawal. It also examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on victim reporting and disengagement. Looking at the period 2019-2021, the research team are analysing 215,000 police DA and rape crime records and 230 in-depth police case files, combined with 40 one-to-one survivor interviews and focus groups with 25 police officers.
- https://www.open.ac.uk/centres/policing/research/theme-1-investigation-community-and-vulnerability/130-victim-disengagement-domestic-abuse
- Domestic Homicides Project, National Police Chiefs’ Council (Academic Lead, 2020-2023)
- This NPCC police-led project was set up in 2020 to analyse all domestic homicides, unexplained deaths and suspected victim suicides with a history of domestic abuse since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Together with a team of academics and police, and reporting to the national police leads for Domestic Abuse and Vulnerability, Homicide and Suicide, Lis leads analysis and reporting to recommend measures for improving policing responses and preventing future deaths.
- https://www.vkpp.org.uk/vkpp-work/domestic-homicide-project/
- Safeguarding Victims of Domestic Abuse during Covid-19: Opportunities and Challenges (Co-Investigator, 2020-2022)
- DASC (Domestic Abuse Safeguarding during Covid-19) is a UK- based research study, funded by the UKRI Rapid Response to Covid-19 research grants. Led by Professor Khatidja Chantler at Manchester Metropolitan University, and with colleagues at Liverpool John Moores, our study explores the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on domestic abuse (DA) safeguarding arrangements at a strategic and practice level from both professional and survivor perspectives. Lis co-leads the workstream analysing policing data and responses to survivors during the pandemic.
- https://domesticabuse-safeguarding-covid19.co.uk/
- Evaluation of Operation Encompass and review of frontline police officer responses to domestic abuse incidents experienced by children (Co-Investigator, 2022-2023)
- In partnership with IPSOS Mori and colleagues at UCLan, this research seeks to improve understanding of current practice among police officers responding to DA incidents experienced by children in order to support and improve police practice. It considers how the police consider the child’s welfare and the actions police officers take in regard to addressing welfare concerns and referral to further support such as child services and seeks to identify specific improvements to practice, multi- agency working or wider system changes. The project also evaluates Operation Encompass and assesses the feasibility of extending the model to other professionals beyond schools.
- Reprovide study (Researcher, 2022)
- Led by the University of Bristol Medical School, this NIHR-funded study is an RCT evaluation of a group behaviour programme intervention for men who use violence and abuse in their relationships. Lis analyses police data to understand the effect of the intervention on men’s criminality and abusive behaviour.
- http://www.bristol.ac.uk/primaryhealthcare/researchthemes/reprovide/
- Principal Investigator (PI) Victim-Survivor (Dis) Engagement from Police in Domestic Abuse and Rape cases. Centre for Policing Research and Learning £335k
- Co-Investigator (Co-I), Safeguarding Victims of Domestic Abuse during Covid-19: Opportunities and Challenges. UKRI £337k
- Academic Lead, Domestic Homicides Project. Home Office £315k in 2021-22
- Principal Investigator, ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship. ESRC £103k (2018-2019)
- Principal Investigator, Responses to sexual and gender-based violence and refugee women. ESRC via Impact Accelerator Account £20k (2018-2019)
- Co-Investigator, Addressing sexual violence against refugee women. European Commission £375k (2016-2018)
- Co-Applicant, Victim/Survivor Voices on Policing Honour-Based Violence. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary £50k (2015)
- Lis is a regular and enthusiastic contributor to UK, European and international conferences and forums on violence against women, criminology, social policy and policing. Recent & forthcoming conference papers include:
- Bates, L. and Hopkins, A. (2022) Impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on victim/survivor engagement with police in England – lessons for practice and policy, DAHLIA Conference, Lake Windermere, May 2022.
- Hopkins, A., Taylor-Dunn, H. and Bates, L. (2022) Unpicking Engagement: Contrasting narratives of survivors and police in domestic abuse cases. European Network for Gender and Violence Research. Copenhagen, June 2022.
- Bates, L. (2021). Symposium: Victim/survivor (dis) engagement with police in domestic abuse and rape cases, European Conference on Domestic Violence. September 2021. Online.
- Bates, L., Hoeger, K., Stoneman, M-J. and Whitaker, A. (2021) Domestic homicides and suspected victim suicides during the Covid-19 pandemic. Vulnerability, Knowledge and Practice Programme Annual Conference. April 2021. Online.
Email: Email:Dr Lis Bates
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