About Us

The Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC) was launched in December 2014 by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

SHOC is managed by the Organised Crime and Policing team at RUSI, supported by a membership of academics and practitioners across law enforcement and government departments.

SHOC aims to bring together academics, practitioners, and policymakers to create a collaborative network of experts, working to improve understanding of and responses to serious and organised crime.

We believe academic analysis can improve approaches to organised crime and provide a deeper understanding of the phenomena, while policymakers and practitioners can identify priority areas for analysis and ensure that academic investigation has significant real-world impact. SHOC aims to facilitate such cooperation.

SHOC has five primary objectives to accomplish this:

1. Prioritisation: SHOC works with policymakers and practitioners to identify critical knowledge gaps. Where relevant academic research exists, these are identified and highlighted
2. Policy-focused: Based on the priorities identified, SHOC facilitates and conducts policy-focused research.
3. Collaboration: SHOC works to improve communication and collaboration between researchers, policymakers and practitioners.
4. Network: SHOC develops and maintains a network of researchers and practitioners working on organised crime.
5. Awareness: SHOC promotes public understanding of organised crime through conferences, seminars, workshops and guest lectures. The SHOC website acts as a focal point for our members, providing a platform from which to disseminate resources on organised crime, coordinate events and publicise external calls for proposals. It also hosts timely commentary and analysis on issues relating to organised crime, which is published through the SHOC blog ‘The Informer’.

The SHOC website acts as a focal point for our members, providing a platform from which to disseminate resources on organised crime, coordinate events and publicise external calls for proposals.

It also hosts timely commentary and analysis on issues relating to organised crime, which is published through two SHOC blogs ‘The Informer’ and ‘Nature, Guns and Money’.