Julia Davidson OBE, PhD(LSE) is Professor of Criminal Justice & Cybercrime, Executive Director of Research and Director of the Institute for Connected Communities. She is one of the UK’s foremost experts on policy and practice in the area of cybercrime, online safety and internet regulation. 

She is Chair of the UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS) Evidence Group and a Member of the UKCIS Executive Board, providing expert advice to Ministers. Prof Davidson also provides expert advice to international and national organisations such as the Technology Coalition, UNICEF , the US Sentencing Commission, and the UN ITU, the Home Office, DCMS, she is a member of the Europol EC3 Expert Academic Advisory Group and a Member of the Advisory Board of the ICC Hague Justice Portal. She has directed a considerable amount of national and international research spanning 35 years and is currently co-leading an H2020 project exploring the human and technical drivers of cybercrime and has recently directed research for OFCOM to underpin VSP guidance in the context of the forthcoming UK online harms legislation. Julia has also acted as an advisor on child Internet safety and children online to governments and practitioners in the MENA region, South America and has worked with the Bahrain Government (implemented 2016) and the Rwandan Government to develop a child online protection policy (implemented 6/2019).

Julia has been awarded a substantial amount of research funding over the last ten years from funders including the ESRC, the EU (Safer Internet, EC ISEC and H2020), Home Office, DCMS, Charities and NGOs. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020 for services to Internet Safety. Professor Davidson has been a professional speaker for many years delivering keynotes, workshops and presentations to a range of professional audiences, she has worked with the media since 2003 working on live and recorded interviews for the BBC News, BBC World News, ITV, C4, BBC R4 News , BBC R4 Woman’s Hour. She has also worked on documentaries and has published widely in the cybercrime and Internet safety area, she has written 6 books and many academic articles. She has a PhD in Criminal Justice Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science and was made Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway University of London in May 2010, Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology in 2014 and she is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.