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Forensic Science in the 2010s: How to Survive a Difficult Decade

The Northumbria University Centre for Forensic Science (NUCFS) was formally created on 1st January 2010.  The inaugural conference is our first event to bring together academics and criminal justice professionals to find common ground and seek shared opportunities to contribute to strengthening forensic science and medicine.

A series of presentations by international, national and NUCFS speakers will explore the theme of Forensic Science in the 2010s:  How to Survive a Difficult Decade.  Three key issues will be explored:

Validity:  across the world doubts have been expressed about the reliability and underpinning basis for forensic evidence.  In the UK the forensic community has embraced accreditation and we are now to enter a regulated environment.  The speakers for this session will reflect on the strategic issues that confront the forensic science community and how confidence in forensic science can be restored?  Indeed whether this matters?

Visibility:  at a time when forensic science has an unprecedented grip on the public imagination why is so little known reliably about what actually happens when forensic science is brought to bear on investigations, or what can realistically be achieved through its application?  What can forensic scientists and clinicians do to improve professional standards, demonstrate the value of their work and seek to influence decision makers so that forensic science and medicine is adequately resourced?

Viability:  with the UK General Election behind us by the date of the conference, will the UK expansion in the use of forensic science come to an end for fiscal reasons?  Will this be part of a global trend?  Are there ways in which forensic scientists and those commissioning their work can balance possibly contradictory pressures to simultaneously improve cost effectiveness and service quality?

There will be panel discussions at the end of each session, and a final session of the conference will seek to build a synthesis of what might be learned from the three thematic sessions.  We hope that by this time conference particpants can jointly answer the critical question for the future of forensic science and medicine:  whether it might be preferable and possible in difficult times to adopt strategies with objectives that are more ambitious than merely survival?

For further information regarding our inaugural conference please select the below links:

 

 

 

 

 



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