Research and Innovation

FCN supports policing, the public and victims of crime by driving research and innovation that leads forensic science into the future.

Below you'll find everything from our areas of research interest, live calls for funding, live projects and the latest research papers, all underpinned by our research and innovation strategy.

Areas of research interest

Could you work in partnership with FCN and other organisations to solve the most pressing forensic challenges of our time?

We are looking to collaborate with police forces, academic institutions, and private-sector providers to 'understand and solve our challenges'. Collectively we are aligned with the Police Chief Scientific Adviser's office ARIs under Professor Paul Taylor aiming to focus research and innovation to priority challenges to the forensic science community.

By tackling our areas of research interest, we'll strengthen the quality and practise of forensic science across policing and UK criminal investigations and enable impactful and targeted research.

The areas below have been created in collaboration with the forensic community through landscape calls, research groups and stakeholder meetings.

Primary areas of research interest

If you have an interest in any of the themes (Behaviour, Technology (AI), Data, Environment, Operational performance) and want to get involved, please get in touch.

Behaviour

Understand and recognise opportunities that improve and support the welfare of staff working within forensic science
Understand and assess cognitive bias within forensic science and provide recommendations from this learning

Technology (AI)

Identify new technological opportunities, to improve forensic outcomes enabling examinations to get ‘closer to the scene’
Improve our understanding of AI and how it may assist forensic science
Improve our understanding and capability to investigate ‘deep fakes’
Recognising that there has been a decline in the adoption of new techniques that support (physical) forensic science there is a need to research opportunities that maybe adopted
Develop learning and develop technological opportunities to assist with the identification of synthetic opioids

Data

Provide learning that understands data and opportunities through synthetic data sets
Understand and improve digital applications, in particular stored complex and unstructured data.
Provide learning on device specific challenges including portless devices and encryption.

Environment

Focus on ‘alternatives’ within forensic science that assist sustainable alternatives as part of a wider effort to meet the UK Net Zero target. Identify opportunities for development that meets the needs of environmental challenges

Operational performance

Understand the value of ‘evidence’ to forensic investigations within the CJS
Improve our understanding of the national forensic service and suggest systems that will enhance service delivery
Understand the impact that the FSR codes and regulation have had on the delivery of forensic science and the impact to law enforcement and the CJS

Active projects

Our live feed on active research projects will be here soon.

For now, please visit the research projects map on the College of Policing website, where you can search for the latest forensic studies by region, institution, topic and type. View the map