The BTL-COP (Building Trust and Leadership to Challenge Aporophobic Crime) project was presented at the International Conference on Aporophobia, held online on 23–24 October 2025 and hosted by IQS (Institut Químic de Sarrià), Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona. The conference brought together international researchers, practitioners, and civil society organisations to address discrimination and exclusion linked to poverty.
On Friday 24 October (15:30–16:00 CET), the BTL-COP consortium delivered a presentation titled “Building Trust and Leadership to Challenge Aporophobic Crime in a Police Community of Practice”. The session introduced the project’s Horizon Europe–funded approach to strengthening police–community trust and protecting economically disadvantaged communities from aporophobic hate crime.
The presentation highlighted BTL-COP’s longitudinal trust-building model, which combines dialogic leadership, face-to-face social learning, and participatory research. Two key innovations were showcased: Trust in Neighbourhood Groups (TING), a police–community community of practice model, and Bondmate, a community-friendly digital alert system designed to enhance neighbourhood safety, shared intelligence, and collaborative crime prevention.
By addressing poverty-driven criminal exploitation and fostering sustainable engagement between police and communities, BTL-COP aims to co-create safer neighbourhoods and improve trust-based policing practices. The project’s long-term goal is to establish scalable TING spaces across the EU and UK, supporting resilience, shared leadership, and community safety in vulnerable contexts.
The presentation was delivered by authors of the BTL-COP paper:
Professor Jill Jameson – Project Coordinator and specialist in trust, leadership, and social learning in community policing.
Dr Alan Briones – Expert in ICT and digital infrastructures for smart societies.
Dr Petar Gregurić – Specialist in project management and EU innovation.
Professor Cristina Albuquerque – Professor of social sciences, with a multidisciplinary team at the University of Coimbra specialising in poverty, trust, policing, and social inequalities.
The BTL-COP consortium thanks the organisers of the International Conference on Aporophobia and all attendees for the opportunity to share its work and engage with international perspectives on combating discrimination and strengthening community safety.