Purpose

Principle 5 of the Greater Than Violence strategy stipulates that GM should strive to be a ‘Trauma Responsive City Region’. To contribute to this, and to contribute to the evidence based and the VRU’s desire to publish research useful for its own commissioning and that of other VRUs, the VRU wish to commission a Greater Manchester level ACEs Population Prevalence Study. The Home Office compels all VRUs to commission and run on the foundation of a public health approach, which will remain the case for confirmed future Home Office activity such as Young Futures/Prevention Partnerships, so this is an opportune moment for the VRU to commission research in this field.

Liverpool John Moores University have undertaken numerous similar studies and have expertise at local, regional, national and international levels for this type of research. Further, LJMU has the intellectual property rights to the questionnaire that will be utilised. Over the past 10-15 years, LJMU has built a strong team of academics who have enhanced understanding of ACEs across the UK and Global North, which has been instrumental in advocating for, and implementing, ACE prevention strategies. Their evidence has enabled the prevention of ACEs to be recognised as a major public health priority across local/national governments and is supporting international advocacy for prevention activity. Specifically, through their ACE and trauma-informed research and evaluation work programme, led by Professor Mark Bellis and Professor Zara Quigg, they have published over 50 peer reviewed academic papers (plus additional research reports) of impactful studies examining the extent, nature, impacts and costs of ACEs, the critical role of resiliency in mitigating the impacts of ACEs/trauma, and what works to prevent and respond to ACEs/trauma.

Professor Bellis and Professor Quigg will be the LJMU leads for the Greater Manchester ACE study, working with relevant Greater Manchester ACE and violence prevention leads.

Decision

GMCA (Violence Reduction Unit) wish to award Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) £25,000 via a grant funding agreement to fund an ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Population Prevalence Study in Greater Manchester. The grant period will be 12 months, beginning 1st August 2025.

This is an amendment to the previous Decision Notice which was signed on 11th July 2025. Due to a legal backlog, LJMU did not review the draft grant agreement until early 2026 following receipt in July 2025. LJMU originally asked for the grant to be made out to their wholly owned subsidiary (JMU Services ltd) which the previous Decision Notice reflects. However, owing to VAT issues with JMU Services which would have reduced the amount of grant funding that would be put towards delivery of the ACES study, this Decision seeks authorisation to redraft the grant to be made out to the university itself (Liverpool John Moores Univesity rather than JMU Services ltd)