BU Research Blog

Funding of £250k is available for this Phase 1 competition from the Home Office’s Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST). CAST exists to protect the public using science and technology by providing high quality, impartial advice, innovative solutions and frontline support to the Home Office and its partners, including the Police.

Across the UK last year, more than 500,000 crime scenes were examined for the recovery of forensic related material, principally, fingerprints and biological material. The challenge facing CAST is how to achieve step-change improvements to forensic processes used in crime investigation in the UK in order to increase the amount of material identified, reduce the time taken to process evidence, manage contamination and lessen disruptive interventions.

 The call for proposals will therefore focus on proof of concepts for technologies and processes which aid the rapid location and recovery of forensic material at crime scenes. The key requirement is to have the capability to quickly screen scenes or articles for the presence of fingerprints or other biological material that can be used in evidence. This may be achieved by a single technology which can locate both fingerprints and biological material, or separate technologies that can be deployed by investigators at a scene.

The competition will open on Monday 1^st September, 2014 and close at midday on Wednesday 9 October 2014.

A briefing event is planned for 10 September in London. To register go to Eventbrite.

About SBRI.

For further information about this competition please visit the website .