Research on, for, with, and about police occupies a hybrid position, neither fully integrated with practice nor largely confined to the academy. This situation has benefits, such as maintaining independence alongside some level of access, but also downsides, particularly around who has access to what police data. In this chapter, I tell the story of one particular police-academic partnership established in London in 2017, the Institute for Global City Policing. Intended to provide a hub for policing research in London, and to serve as a bridge between the Metropolitan Police Service, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and academia, the Institute both reaped the benefits of independence and an unusual level of access to the police and experienced some of the well-known issues that arise in such situations. The chapter provides insight into both the successes of the Institute and the challenges faced, and why both transpired, to inform others interested in setting up similar arrangements elsewhere.