Author Information:

Professor Alison is Director of Critical and Major Incident Research at the Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Liverpool. He focuses on high profile critical and major incidents (from disaster management to terrorism). With an international reputation and a number of high profile publications on the subject of critical incident decision making, interrogation of high value detainees and risk prioritisation of sexual and violent offenders he has been the key psychological debriefer of over 460 critical incidents including 7/7, the Boxing Day Tsunami, The Buncefield fire and preparations for the Beijing and London Olympics. He has served as key advisor on over 200 major cases and been involved as a criminal profiler and psychological advisor in the UK and oversease He is a member of the University of Liverpool's Risk and Uncertainty Institute (a collaboration between researchers in the humanities, social sciences and science and engineering), was one of the four Security and Conflict champions for the University and Academic Director of the HYDRA Foundation (which employs immersive simulations and operational debriefs for the emergency services, criminal justice sector, defence, government industry and commercial sectors). Prof. Alison was Director for the MSc in Investigative and Forensic Psychology - radically changing its format in 2006 and, in doing so, having it accredited by The DFP / BPS as well as the MSc in Critical and Major Incident Psychology - courses that provided education and research experience for strategic decision makers in the emergency services. His work informs child protection, sexual exploitation, terrorism and disaster response nationally and internationally. His risk tool for Child Sexual Exploitation is now used in 24 European Countries, and his work in this domain was used to direct resources in the largest British Police operation in recent history His rapport-based model of interrogation is used to train the UK national terrorism interview teams and the US FBI DoD and CIA (he now trains officers in Washington DC as well as them attending the UK for training). This work was directed after President Obama's inauguration, after a drive towards evidence-based, ethical and legally compliant rapport-based methods of interrogation. His work on decision making and decision inertia is used nationally by UK Police. The work on decision making is driving learning development methods for fast track officers and high potential development scheme through the College of Policing. His work on multi agency emergency responses is enshrined in the Chief Fire Officers Association Protocols (CFOA), informed the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Program (JESIP) with reports on multi agency response live exercises used as part of a set of reports to the Home Secretary.