Forensic science in the UK: where do we go from here?

Tuesday 9 November marked the launch of the UCL Jill Dando Institute Centre for the Forensic Sciences. The event is reviewed below by Dr Peter Bull, Fellow and Tutor at Hertford College, Oxford, who teaches a course on forensic geology and geography for undergraduates and supervises research projects on the subject of forensic trace materials. ?Academic forensic science researchers/practitioners tend to be a lonesome bunch who normally research their fields of interest solo or in very loose collaboration in a more peripatetic way. So imagine my surprise when collecting my badge and programme at the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre to notice that there were 200 or more badges awaiting arriving delegates. Now, I am sure that I have not met 200 forensic scientists in the last 20 years or so and yet by the time the programme started every seat was taken and there seemed to be another 40 or 50 on a balcony behind me. As the evening unfolded, I realised that there were, apart from those who spoke or who were on the panel, delegates representing forensic science providers (from chief executive officers to research scientists), the police (local forces, the Met, National Police Improvement Agency), government (Home Secretary's Office, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, Criminal Review Board, Crown Prosecution Service, Japanese Embassy), the judiciary and the press (the Daily Mirror , Police Oracle, The Times ). Perhaps however, the most impressive thing I noticed was the large number of UCL academics who came from at least a dozen or more different departments and all of whom seemed heavily committed towards this Centre.