Ben Brewster
Researcher
- Centre of Excellence in Terrorism Resilience Intelligence and Organised Crime Research
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
Summary
I'm currently working as a researcher with CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research) inside CCRC. Primarily, my research interests fall somewhere between the information systems side of computing, knowledge management, and criminology. Of particular interest is the intersection and application of these disciplines within the security domain. In this regard, I am currently studying towards a PhD triangulating these interests in relation to their application in intelligence-led initiatives to combat Human Trafficking by the police, with the ultimate objective of developing a target operating model of effective practice for knowledge and intelligence management.
About
I'm currently working as a researcher with CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research) inside CCRC. Primarily, my research interests fall somewhere between the information systems side of computing, knowledge management, and criminology. Of particular interest is the intersection and application of these disciplines within the security domain. In this regard, I am currently studying towards a PhD triangulating these interests in relation to their application in intelligence-led initiatives to combat Human Trafficking by the police, with the ultimate objective of developing a target operating model of effective practice for knowledge and intelligence management.
Further to this, I have experience in working on a range of collaborative interdisciplinary security focused research projects alongside individuals and organizations from across Europe, integrating the skills of law enforcement, industry practitioners and policy makers, enterprise technology and solutions providers, and commercial and academic research partners. I currently work on a number of projects, including the FP7 funded ePOOLICE project focusing the on the use of text analytics and information retrieval tools to support open-source environmental scanning to enable the early detection, pursuit and prevention of organised crime, the EU funded COURAGE project seeking to define a future research agenda for cybercrime and cyberterrorism through prolonged engagement with domain stakeholders, and the DG-Home Affairs funded UINFC2 project centred around enhancing stakeholder engagement in response to the illegal use of the internet for the purposes of child exploitation through the use of data-mining.
Knowledge Management; Information Systems; Intelligence-led Policing; Security; Human Trafficking
Teaching
College of Business, Technology and Engineering
- ePOOLICE
- COURAGE
- UINFC2
Research
- Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research
- Culture and Creativity Research Institute
Publications
Key Publications
Brewster, B., Gibson, H., & Gunning, M. (2018). Policing the community together: the impact of technology on citizen engagement. In Levantakis, G., & Haberfeld, M. (Eds.) Societal implications of community‐oriented policing techology. (pp. 91-102). Switzerland: Springer: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89297-9
Andrews, S., Brewster, B., & Day, T. (2016). Organised crime and social media: detecting and corroborating weak signals of human trafficking online. In Haemmerlé, O., Stapleton, G., & Faron-Zucker, C. (Eds.) Graph-based representation and reasoning, (pp. 137-150). Heidelberg: Springer: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40985-6_11
Akhgar, B., & Brewster, B. (Eds.). (2016). Combatting cybercrime and cyberterrorism: challenges, trends and priorities. Springer.
Journal articles
Brewster, B. (2019). Collaborating to identify, recover and support victims of modern slavery. Journal of modern slavery, 4 (2), 200-224. http://slavefreetoday.org/
Nitsch, H., Brewster, B., & Akhgar, B. (2018). Maximising the security and safety of citizens by strengthening the connection between the police and the communities they serve. European Law Enforcement Research Bulletin, SCE 4. https://bulletin.cepol.europa.eu/index.php/bulletin/article/view/334
Marzell, L., & Brewster, B. (2017). Building safer societies: A framework for trust. Crisis Response Journal, 13 (1), 80-82. https://www.crisis-response.com/news/news.php?article=1468
Brewster, B., Akhgar, B., Staniforth, A., Waddington, D., Andrews, S., & Johnson, K. (2014). Towards a model for the integration of knowledge management in law enforcement agencies. International journal of electronic security and digital forensics, 6 (1), 1-17. http://doi.org/10.1504/IJESDF.2014.060169
Conference papers
Brewster, B., Andrews, S., Polovina, S., Hirsch, L., & Akhgar, B. (2014). Environmental Scanning and Knowledge Representation for the Detection of Organised Crime Threats. In Hernandez, N., Jäschke, R., & Croitoru, M. (Eds.) Graph-Based Representation and Reasoning, (pp. 275-280). Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08389-6_22
Brewster, B., Polovina, S., Rankin, G., & Andrews, S. (2014). Knowledge management and human trafficking: using conceptual knowledge representation, text analytics and open-source data to combat organized crime. In Hernandez, N., Jäschke, R., & Croitoru, M. (Eds.) Graph-Based Representation and Reasoning, (pp. 104-117). Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08389-6_10
Book chapters
Charalambous, E., Kavallieros, D., Brewster, B., Leventakis, G., Koutras, N., & Papalexandratos, G. (2017). Combatting cybercrime and sexual exploitation of children: an open source toolkit. In Akhgar, B., Bayerl, P.S., & Sampson, F. (Eds.) Open source intelligence investigation: from strategy to implementation. (pp. 233-249). Cham: Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47671-1_15
Akhgar, B., Choraś, M., Brewster, B., Bosco, F., Vermeersch, E., Luda, V., ... Wells, D. (2016). Consolidated taxonomy and research roadmap for cybercrime and cyberterrorism. In Akhgar, B., & Brewster, B. (Eds.) Combatting cybercrime and cyberterrorism : challenges, trends and priorities. (pp. 295-321). Cham: Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38930-1_16
Wells, D., Brewster, B., & Akhgar, B. (2016). Challenges priorities and policies: mapping the research requirements of cybercrime and cyberterrorism stakeholders. In Akhgar, B., & Brewster, B. (Eds.) Combatting cybercrime and cyberterrorism : challenges, trends and priorities. (pp. 39-51). Cham: Springer International Publishing: http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38930-1_3
Brewster, B., Kemp, B., Galehbakhtiari, S., & Akhgar, B. (2015). Cybercrime. In Application of Big Data for National Security. (pp. 108-127). Elsevier: http://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-801967-2.00008-2
Brewster, B., Kemp, B., Galahbakhtiari, S., & Akhgar, B. (2015). Cybercrime: attack motivations and implications for big data and national security. In Akhgar, B., Saathoff, G.B., Arabnia, H.R., Hill, R., Staniforth, A., & Bayerl, P.S. (Eds.) Application of big data for national security: a practitioners guide to emerging technologies. (pp. 108-129). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann (Elsevier): https://www.elsevier.com/books/application-of-big-data-for-national-security/akhgar/978-0-12-801967-2
Brewster, B., Ingle, T., & Rankin, G. (2014). Crawling open-source data for indicators of human trafficking. In 2014 IEEE/ACM 7th International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing. (pp. 714-719). The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers: http://doi.org/10.1109/UCC.2014.116
Bayerl, P.S., Akhgar, B., Brewster, B., Domdouzis, K., & Gibson, H. (2014). Social media and its role for LEA's : review and applications. In Akhgar, B., Staniforth, A., & Bosco, F. (Eds.) Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism Investigators Handbook. (pp. 197-220). Elsevier: http://store.elsevier.com/Cyber-Crime-and-Cyber-Terrorism-Investigators-Handbook/isbn-9780128007433/
Bayerl, P.S., Staniforth, A., Akhgar, B., Brewster, B., & Johnson, K. (2014). A framework for the investigation and modeling of online radicalization and the identification of radicalized individuals. In Akhgar, B., & Arabnia, H. (Eds.) Emerging Trends in ICT Security. (pp. 539-547). Elsevier: http://store.elsevier.com/Emerging-Trends-in-ICT-Security/isbn-9780124114746/
Hassanzadeh, M., Jahangiri, N., & Brewster, B. (2014). A Conceptual Framework For Information Security Awareness Assessment. In Akhgar, B., & Arabnia, H. (Eds.) Emerging Trends in ICT Security. (pp. 99-110). Elsevier: http://store.elsevier.com/Emerging-Trends-in-ICT-Security/isbn-9780124114746/
Books
Akhgar, B., & Brewster, B. (Eds.). (2016). Combatting Cybercrime and Cyberterrorism. Springer International Publishing. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38930-1
BEN, (1992). Preface. Elsevier. http://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-7506-0766-7.50004-0
BEN, (1992). Preface. Elsevier. http://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-7506-0766-7.50004-0
Theses / Dissertations
Marshall, N.R. (2019). Whose interests? Gaming, School Type, Social Justice and Pupils’ Post-16 Access. (Doctoral thesis). Supervised by Demack, S. http://doi.org/10.7190/shu-thesis-00270