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Success in Forensic Science Research and Other Collaborative Projects: Meeting Your Partners' Expectations

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 11:34 authored by Sally Kelty, Roberta JulianRoberta Julian
Forensic science is increasingly used in civil and criminal investigations and court proceedings. Over the past decade there has been a marked increase in the number of large collaborative and interagency research projects looking at the effectiveness of forensic science. Whether these large interagency projects will be successful is based on two fundamentals: whether the research produces quality outputs and, more importantly, whether the outputs match the expectations of research partners and stakeholders. We discuss the importance of understanding what partners and stakeholders expect and need from projects in which they invest. We explored expectations in a large Australian project assessing ‘The Effectiveness of Forensic Science in the Criminal Justice System’. This collaboration is between two Australian police forces, the National Institute of Forensic Science, and three Australian and one European university. We found that the way stakeholders interpreted the title of the project influenced the direction they wanted the research to take and what outcomes/outputs they expected. We found five different research directions and outcomes/outputs expectations.We suggest that to avoid disappointment, stakeholders should voice their expectations and explicitly define their needs. Since expectations are rarely static, it makes sense to revisit expectations of stakeholders throughout projects.

History

Publication title

Forensic Science Policy and Management

Pagination

141-147

ISSN

1940-9044

Department/School

School of Social Sciences

Publisher

Taylor & Francis Inc.

Place of publication

United States

Rights statement

Copyright 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Law enforcement

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