Brian Francis

Professor Brian Francis is a distinguished academic at Lancaster University, serving as Professor of Social Statistics within the School of Mathematical Sciences. His office is located in B38, B-Floor, Fylde College, and he maintains an active research program as evidenced by his extensive publication record and ongoing projects extending through 2026.

Professor Francis is a leading social statistician whose research spans multiple domains at the intersection of statistics and social sciences. His primary research interests include:

• Social statistics and quantitative criminology
• Preference models and latent class methods for longitudinal data
• Mixture models and categorical data problems
• Criminal careers of offenders and social and developmental change
• Analysis of administrative and survey data
• Violence and serious offending, including sexual offending, homicide, trafficking, and cyber-crime
• High frequency victimization and gender-based violence
• Child developmental studies in psychology

His research program demonstrates a consistent focus on applying sophisticated statistical methodologies to pressing social issues, particularly in criminology and violence research. Professor Francis has developed innovative approaches for analyzing criminal careers, measuring violence, and understanding patterns of offending behavior. His recent work has particularly emphasized the measurement challenges in criminological data and the gender dimensions of violence.

Analysis of Professor Francis's recent publications reveals a strong trend toward methodological innovation in crime statistics and violence measurement. His 2020-2025 work focuses on critical issues including conflicting trends in violent crime measurement, developing sentence severity scales, refining violence definitions in crime surveys, and improving estimation methods for human trafficking. He has also made significant contributions to data privacy techniques through his work on differential privacy and synthesis of confidential data.

Professor Francis has received notable recognition for his contributions to the field:

• Royal Statistical Society: John Howard Medal for Social Statistics
• ONS Research Excellence Awards 2024 Outcome - Impact of Analysis

Professor Francis is actively involved in numerous research projects and collaborations. His current projects include "Working memory and its relation to key outcomes in the real world" (2023-2026), "METHCRIM- methodological aspects of crime survey data" (2023-2026), and "Violence Health and Society" (2021-2026). He has provided written evidence to Parliamentary committees on tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and contributed to policy development in trafficking and violence measurement.

As a member of the Data Science Institute and Security Lancaster, Professor Francis collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to address complex societal challenges through statistical methodology. His editorial work for the European Journal of Criminology and Journal of Quantitative Criminology demonstrates his leadership in advancing methodological standards in criminological research.