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Natural Traces in forensic investigations - how the analysis of non-human evidence can solve crime

Descripción del proyecto

Llenar un vacío en la formación práctica sobre criminalística

En el ámbito de la criminalística, cada lugar del delito cuenta una historia única que, a menudo, incluye la presencia vaga de rastros biológicos no humanos. Pelos de animales domésticos, polen, organismos edáficos y ADN ambiental son solo algunos ejemplos de estas pistas escurridizas. Sin embargo, en la Unión Europea faltan oportunidades de formación a nivel de posgrado para analizar y utilizar de forma eficaz estas pistas de origen biológico. En el proyecto Natural Traces, que cuenta con el apoyo de las acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, se abordará esta carencia en la enseñanza de la criminalística. Para ello, se formará a diez estudiantes de doctorado a través una enseñanza integral en prácticas criminalísticas. La formación, impartida por socios del mundo universitario y el sector industrial, academias de policía y laboratorios, se centrará en la integración de pruebas biológicas en un marco bayesiano.

Objetivo

Literally any crime scene contains animal, plant, soil, microbial or environmental traces. Examples include pet hairs or saliva, pollen and algae, soil and soil organisms like bacteria or nematodes, fungal spores, insects, and environmental traces in the form of environmental DNA of any origin. Such biological traces can be found mainly on living people (suspects, victims), on objects like cars or weapons, and on bodies not just on the surface but also in their surroundings like single or mass graves, or an aquatic environment.
In the EU, there is a lack of training opportunities in applied topics of forensic science at postgraduate level, such as the qualitative and quantitative analysis of specifically such non-human biological traces. While many EU countries have forensic laboratories that also such traces, a much broader, integrated knowledge base is needed, built on close cooperation between basic research in academia and analysis and application in casework by forensic specialists. Natural Traces aims to optimise the procedures for taking and analysing non-human traces in order to meet the ever-increasing demands for identifying suspects and victims and to link traces to different places, times or courses of action. The results based on this need a statistical robustness that will also hold up in the courtroom under cross-examination.
The proposal aims for 10 PhD students with a background in life sciences. They will build their knowledge and experience in practical forensics in training schools provided by academic, non-academic partners, and police academies or laboratories. The training embeds biological evidence in a Bayesian framework, making it universally comparable with all other forms of evidence, by applying novel probabilistic approaches to extract forensic useful information from metadata. It is truly cross-sectoral, with secondments at end-users of the training (e.g. police forces) and joint supervision by PIs from different countries.

Coordinador

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 260 539,20
Dirección
THEODOR W ADORNO PLATZ 1
60323 Frankfurt Am Main
Alemania

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Región
Hessen Darmstadt Frankfurt am Main, Kreisfreie Stadt
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
Sin datos

Participantes (9)

Socios (14)