PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
PROF DR WIM HARDYNS
Wim Hardyns is professor of criminology at the Department of Criminology, Criminal Law and Social Law at Ghent University and visiting professor of security sciences at the University of Antwerp. As Principal Investigator, he leads the BIGDATPOL project.
The European Research Council (ERC) of the European Commission awarded him a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant for his BIGDATPOL project (ERC, BIGDATPOL, 101088156), after a very thorough evaluation and selection from more than 2,200 applications in 2023. This funding enabled him to compile a diverse team to develop an evidence-based big data policing model.
During his academic career, professor Hardyns has developed a broad expertise in the field of criminology. In doing so, he specialised in everything related to crime statistics, crime prevention, big data, AI and predictive models for the prevention and management of crime. He is the first professor in Europe to receive an Early Career Award from the European Society of Criminology in 2020, recognising the outstanding scientific achievements of a European criminologist.
“The BIGDATPOL project has a very large social impact. We are in the midst of a new technological revolution, specifically the AI revolution. Which has important consequences for the security domain. In our project, we bring together relevant data, while paying attention to the ethical aspects, and we want to ensure that police forces can organise themselves even better, not only reactively, but also proactively.”
