Background: Police-academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeoning literature in the discipline of criminology which is concerned with charting the progress of these partnerships and setting out the ideal conditions for their future expansion. Aims and Objectives: We advance a sympathetic critique of this literature, adding a note of caution to its largely optimistic outlook. Methods: We do this by combining a narrative review of the literature on police-academic partnerships with insights from elsewhere in the social sciences and observations from our experience of running the International Strand of the N8 Policing Research Partnership. Findings and Discussion: While we recognise that police-academic partnerships have certainly come a long way, and have the capacity to make important contributions to police work, we argue that they remain ‘fragile’ alliances, beset with fractious occupational cultures, unreliable funding streams and unsustainable inter-institutional relationships. We also reason that the structures underpinning this ‘fragility’ do not represent problems to be overcome, for they help to protect the integrity of the two professions. Conclusion: We conclude by offering pragmatic measures for sustaining police-academic partnerships during those difficult periods characterised by cultural dissonance, a paucity of funding and the turnover of key personnel.

中文翻译：

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脆弱的联盟：警察-学术伙伴关系中的文化、资金和可持续性

背景：在过去十年左右的时间里，由于循证警务运动的扩展、学院对有影响力的研究的价值不断增加、警察专业化议程的上升以及在金融危机后的紧缩条件下，跨部门合作的必要性日益增加。这一趋势催生了犯罪学学科的新兴文献，这些文献关注描绘这些伙伴关系的进展并为其未来扩展设定理想条件。目的和目标：我们对这些文献提出了同情的批评，为其基本乐观的前景增添了一丝谨慎。方法：为此，我们将有关警察-学术伙伴关系的文献的叙述性评论与社会科学其他领域的见解和我们运行 N8 警务研究伙伴关系国际链的经验相结合。调查结果和讨论：虽然我们认识到警察-学术伙伴关系确实取得了长足的进步，并且有能力为警察工作做出重要贡献，但我们认为它们仍然是“脆弱的”联盟，饱受不稳定的职业文化和不可靠的资金流的困扰和不可持续的机构间关系。我们还认为，支撑这种“脆弱性”的结构并不代表需要克服的问题，因为它们有助于保护两个行业的完整性。结论：