Clifford Stott

Crowd behavior and policing expert Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at the Keele University in England, has joined the Glenn College as a visiting professor. Stott’s expertise and work on crowd psychology and behavior has informed policy, guidance and practice in crowd management for a range of government and police organizations in the U.K. and internationally, including the European Council and the European Union, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark and Australia as well as more recently in the U.S.

Stott and Glenn College Professor Russell Hassan, the Ambassador Milton A. and Roslyn Z. Wolf Chair in Public and International Affairs, are leading a collaborative research initiative with the Columbus Division of Police to institute evidence-based and community-focused policing practices. The project, called LEGACY, is jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of Columbus and aims to use research evidence to help develop new dialogue-based crowd policing practices, enhance police legitimacy, reduce crime and improve public safety as well as police relationships with the community.

Stott also is director of the Keele Policing Academic Collaboration, one of Keele University’s Strategic Research Centres. With an interdisciplinary focus, he specializes in understanding the nature and role of social identity processes and intergroup relationships in the psychology and dynamics of police citizen encounters, particularly as this relates to perceptions of police legitimacy. He has been funded as a principal and co-investigator of research projects valued in excess of $8.5 million and published multiple journal articles, chapters and books. He currently sits on the U.K.’s National Police Chiefs’ Science Advisory Council, was a scientific advisor to the U.K. Government during the Covid-19 pandemic and has been an associate and consultant editor for several journals including the British Journal of Social Psychology. He currently sits on the advisory board of the journal Policing and Society.