Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine

Research Centres & Groups

Centre for Forensics Excellence

Bond University announced its first ever interdisciplinary research centre in September 2007, the Centre for Forensic Excellence, which is a collaborative research venture between the Faculties of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Health Sciences and Medicine.

The foundation researchers involved with the Centre are:

Associate Professor David Field
Director of the Centre and
Associate Professor of Law		 Professor Paul Wilson
Chair of Criminology		 Professor Angela Van Daal
Professor of Forensic Sciences

The Patron of the Centre is the Honourable Justice Michael Kirby who has been a Justice of the High Court of Australia since 1996, previously served as President of the NSW Court of Appeal, was the first Chairperson of the Australian Law Reform Commission and served as a Federal Court judge.

The Centre has an Advisory Board chaired by Professor Duncan Chappell, a lawyer and criminologist who has published widely on a range of crime and criminal justice issues. The board members include well known individuals such as the Director of the Australian Federal Police Forensic Services, a Senior Member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and Senior Director of Queensland Health Forensic and Scientific Services. Guidance and advice from such a strong group of external members will provide the Centre with a wide range of skills and expertise to bear upon its future work and direction.

The primary purpose of the Centre is to act as a focus for research in all aspects of forensic studies as they are harnessed and applied to the justice system within and outside Australia, and to assist all those engaged in those disciplines which have an appropriate input to begin speaking in a common language.

It is believed that the justice system (and notably the criminal justice system) could be considerably enhanced and enriched by ongoing dialogue between stakeholders in the application of forensic techniques to the judicial process, to replace what currently appears to be a “dialogue of the deaf” between specialisms which have no obvious common ground.

While it would be unrealistic to expect to be able to educate lawyers in the mysteries of molecular biology or forensic psychology, it is felt that there is much to gain from inviting an exchange of perspectives in a mutually supportive environment between those who would normally see the justice system from the outside and those who have the “justice knowledge” but not the scientific expertise.

The Centre’s joint objective is to promote increased linkages between such stakeholders and other universities, industry, the wider community and all tiers of government in a program of collaborative research and publication which will see our Centre as the leading driver of forensic initiatives in our justice system by 2010.

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