Our LeadershipTeam

Our Leadership Team offer strategic guidance and support to the multi-disciplinary team of subject matter experts that work alongside them on specific projects. Colleagues come from a variety of backgrounds and experience and blend together into a fantastic team - without them we would not deliver such great results.

Key senior team members include an internationally recognised professor as our Head of Ethics & Inclusion.

She is a member of the Biometrics Institute Privacy expert Group. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of Leeds and Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics and Integration at the universities of Hull and Leeds. She has taught at universities in the EU and University of Auckland, New Zealand, published widely, contributed to EU research on trasnparency and e-borders, and presented evidence to the European Parliament and national parliaments on European democratic accountability, freedom, security and justice. Awarded EU Woman of Europe in 1992, her research focuses on biometrics, AI ethics and their impact on human security and society.

Our Head of Communications and Head of Research are both highly qualified, and have been chosen for their collaborative working style, and approachability for partners. The nature of our work requires strong self-motivation, and the combination of these two behaviours makes our people our most valuable asset.

We are always interested to expand our network of potential colleagues, so please see our careers section for any anticipated vacancies.

Meredydd John Hughes CBE QPM

Director

In his 32-year Police career, Meredydd (Med) Hughes served in four of the largest UK Forces and on secondment at the Home Office. He has extensive experience in the leadership of major public and sporting events, roads policing, firearms, public order, and emergency planning. He became Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, leading the Force for 7 years, following his role as Gold Commander of the Manchester

Commonwealth Games in 2002.

His national responsibilities included oversight of the 2005 G8 Conference, the 2010 Papal Visit to the UK, and he led the 2012 Olympic Games Planning Team for two years.

For his services to UK and international policing, he was awarded the CBE in January 2012, having received the QPM in 2006. He completed his master’s degree in Leadership and Management (Policing and Security) at CSU in Australia in June 2016.

Since leaving the UK police, he has focussed on his work as an international consultant in strategic policing issues, and has been involved in developing innovative technologies for policing and security with a number of companies. These include the use of UAVs in policing operations, and using AI to enhance surveillance camera systems for public safety. With Saher (EU) colleagues, he is currently working on developing best practice in disaster management for the European Union (Project CORE), and developing technology and processes for religious organisations to work together and protect against terrorist attacks (Projects PROTECTOR and PRECRISIS).

He has lived in Dubai for over 6 years, and has worked extensively across the GCC, with specific projects delivered in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. These projects include the design, construction, and delivery of the Dubai RTA EC3 Centre, and most recently his work as a subject matter expert for PWC, delivering a major project for the Ministry of the Interior in Riyadh.

He is an Associate Professor at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security.

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Andrew Staniforth

Director

Having completed a 25-year career as an operational police officer with extensive expertise in counter-terrorism. Working in 22 countries and supporting missions of the United Nations Terrorism Prevention Branch, he is a professionally qualified teacher and has designed international multi-agency security exercise programmes, delivering training to Senior Police Commanders from across the world. As a Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer, he has held academic positions at leading security research institutes. He is the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of 12 security-related books covering counter-terrorism, border security, cybercrime and human trafficking. Working at a European level as a professionally qualified project manager he is highly experienced in delivering new security projects. He is also an accredited EU proposal evaluator and sits by invitation on numerous Advisory Boards for leading security research and innovation projects.

David Fortune

Director

After his career as a Naval Officer, he served in the police for 30 years retiring in 2012. After several promotions in the police, he undertook command roles in several major policing operations but for the last 8 years of the service he undertook a regional policing role for the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK. In this role he created several strategic partnerships including the regional anti-fraud forum and the Business Crime Reduction Centre. He also oversaw and lead the regional police involvement in innovation and strategic engagement with the EU and Europe.

He was a part of the team that created CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence iN Terrorism, Resilience and organIsed Crime) at Sheffield Hallam University and remains on its board in a voluntary capacity. He started to work with the EU as part of the evaluation team for PASR06, the forerunner programme to security research in Europe and has retained a role as evaluator and project reviewer.

In 2009 he was the UK representative and chair of a Europol working group of organised crime focusing on cargo theft and spoke at several international conference to address this type of crime.

He has worked on an extensive list of UK and EU funded security related projects including projects that focused on Counter Drone Technology, Protection of Public Places, Environmental Crime, Counter Radicalisation and Digital / Cybercrime.

He has contributed to numerous academic papers and publications and sits on the advisory board on other European funded projects.

He is the company PLSIGN and LEAR for EU projects