Introducing the capstone initiative: building pracademic capacity in Canada’s community safety & well-being sector

Many people within the community safety well-being sector undertaking advanced education (e.g., MA, MBA, MPA) struggle landing on a thesis topic (or in the case of an MBA, their final project) that will meaningfully inform the future of community safety and well-being. Recently, a friend approached me to discuss his proposed topic — the importance of physical fitness in 21st century policing. Okay, I thought — interesting perhaps, but surely not impactful on the future policing and community safety. As important as this topic might be, has it not already been covered extensively over the years? And besides, will it be of interest to others five to ten years from now? So after discussing other options, he has decided to focus on something much better aligned with the future of community safety, or as Gretzky put it, ”... where the puck is going to be”. A pracademic is an individual who is recognized as an expert in his or her field, who also possesses sound academic training (Huey & Mitchell, 2016). Developing greater pracademic capacity within the community safety and well-being sector is not just nice to do, but an essential ingredient to the future transformations taking place across Canada. In one respect, it is a matter of supply and demand. Increasing demand for evidence-based solutions and applied research exceeds the supply of skilled and interested academic researchers, according to Anthony Braga (Braga, 2016) in a recent article. It is against this backdrop that CSKA and its partners — the Centre for Collaborative Justice Studies (University of Regina), the Forensic Centre for Behavioural Science and Justice Studies (University of Saskatchewan), and the Canadian Society for Evidence-based Policing — are pleased to launch the Capstone Initiative. Capstone focuses on supporting community safety and well-being leaders and practitioners who are engaged in advanced education (e.g., MA, MBA, MPA, MSc). The initiative will support interested learners within the sector in five (5) interconnected ways: