The forensic scientist of the future – are universities prepared?

Megan O’Connell ¹ writes in The Conversation that whilst universities historically existed for the creation and dispersion of knowledge, today many young people enter university solely to prepare for careers. She states that ‘it is difficult to make accurate predictions about the jobs of the future’ but some insight can be gained by looking at the types of skills young people will need ‘pointing to a future transformed by automation and digitisation’.

Volume 50, number 3, of the Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences contains the outcomes of the 2016 NIFS/SMANZFL-hosted forensic summit and includes consideration of what the future of forensic science might look like. NIFS have also published a Research and Innovation Strategy ², a Research and Innovation Roadmap ³ and a Current Status report for forensic science research and innovation ⁴. It is beyond the scope of this editorial commentary to consider these reports in detail. We do not doubt for one minute that they contain much of value and will be useful resources to the forensic industry, partners and academics alike. However, what is very apparent in reading these documents is that they deal in the language of today with current initiatives listed under the classic forensic discipline titles, with a little bit of ‘other’.

The Research and Innovation Strategy ² does list five general themes, these being forensic science and technology advancement, forensic intelligence, forensic science fundamentals, portable and rapid forensic solutions, and forensic science value and effectiveness.

The roadmap then aligns these broadly against policing priorities and identifies capability development requirements. Once again, all useful stuff, but does it capture the potential rate of change that may take place in the next decade? Will the forensic scientist of the future resemble the forensic scientist of today? Will future forensic scientists still be largely discipline specialists, wearing a lab coat and working in a centralized laboratory or are we genuinely at the edge of a real paradigm change?

The US astronaut Neil Armstrong once stated ‘science has not yet mastered prophecy – we predict too much for next year and yet far too little for the next ten years’ ⁵. In attempting to predict the future, what if the forensic scientist of the future was not a discipline expert, but was a generalist working largely in the field, with broad trans-disciplinary expertise, using seriously enhanced analytical capabilities, backed up by a much lower number of specialists working in essentially an office environment dealing with big data with a primary function of crime prevention and intelligence? What if the forensic scientist of the future was a privileged observer of crime and security phenomena and a trusted advisor for developing broader strategies to deal with these problems at a societal level?

In such a decentralized forensic ecosystem, knowledge – including knowledge transfer and knowledge management – is crucial and the link to universities is obvious.

The challenge for universities in preparing the graduate of the future is to look at our own discipline-based approach to education, with its potential to produce siloed-thinking graduates. Universities need to seek to create genuine trans-disciplinary approaches aimed at producing graduates with ‘broad capabilities, whilst at the same time recognizing that some roles are being transformed to require even deeper knowledge’ .¹ O’Connell comments that ‘If we want to develop genuinely innovative thinking then we also need to develop graduates who are more entrepreneurial and flexible than in the past’ .¹

Universities are currently very focused on how they need to evolve to adapt to the changing environment but they are not especially nimble. Typically, changing a course takes about two academic years!

NIFS also recognizes that its role includes to ‘maximize opportunities for forensic science skills and knowledge development’ ² and that this will require working cooperatively with academic providers.

However, the clock is ticking. We need to think outside the box, and do so now, about what the forensic scientist of the future will look like, and get moving if tomorrow’s graduate is going to be equipped for the employment of the future.

James Robertson
Editor, AJFS
Director National centre for Forensic Studies, University of Canberra, Australia
[email protected] Roux
Director, Centre for Forensic Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3610-420X