Studying our Forensic Science BSc (Hons) course will equip you with in-depth skills and knowledge needed for crime scene investigation, examination and analysis of evidence in the laboratory and communication of your findings for court. You will be given a broad understanding of core scientific areas including Human Anatomy and Physiology, Molecular Genetics and Chemistry for Forensic Scientists where you will get to explore topics such as structure and relationship between body parts, patterns of genetic inheritance and the structure of molecules. To equip you with the research and practical skills for this course, our Skills for Forensic Scientists unit will teach you to record, analyse and report data from experiments as well as the key skills you need for investigation of a crime scene, including photography, evidence selection and exhibit packaging. As one of the crucial parts of your study, you will learn how to conduct a basic search of exhibits for evidence of interest and to complete your casefile notes in our Evidence Examination Skills unit. This leads into our Biology in Forensic Science unit where you will learn to examine biological evidence that could be encountered at a crime scene. This is a crucial part of forensics, as biologists can support a range of investigations from preserving, recovering and analysing biological samples such as blood, saliva and hair, and using bones and teeth to help identify a body.  

Aside from human samples, you will also learn to examine and analyse a range of biological evidence using animals and plants to aid forensic investigations in our Animals and Plants in Crime unit. Underpinning many types of biological evidence in forensic investigations is DNA, this is where our Forensic Genetics and Advanced Applications in Forensic Genetics units will introduce you to DNA analysis and profiling techniques to develop your understanding so that you can devise a forensic strategy for any sample type. Other key evidence types, such as paint, firearms, digital evidence and documents analysis will be covered in Crimes Against Property where you will investigate how forensic techniques are used to identify class and individual characteristics of trace and physical evidence in order to reconstruct events of the crime of to form associations between people and crime scenes. You will also learn to identify properties of legal and illegal substances encountered in forensic drug examinations in Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis and to identify, recover and analyse evidence from fire or explosion crime scenes in the Fire Analysis unit. 

To deepen your understanding of criminal behaviour, our Psychology and Criminal Behaviour unit will help you understand the contexts in which criminal behaviour occurs while introducing ways to assess and rehabilitate various types of offenders based on different types of crime, including stalking, violence and terrorism. Similarly, you will learn how science contributes to law-making processes, enforcement and prosecution in criminal justice settings in our Psychology and Criminal Justice unit. As a result of your examinations, Presentation of Evidence will equip you with the basic statistical methods to critically evaluate and communicate your scientific findings in the form of expert witness statements and presentation of evidence in a court environment. You will then get to apply these skills in our Crime Scene to Court unit where you take the role as the lead scientist and work on a simulated forensic investigation that develops in real-time over the course of a semester. 

During this time, you will manage your own work, complete examination notes and subsequently present your results in a court session. In addition, you will undertake our unit in Suspicious Death Investigation during which you will develop the skills needed to build a biological profile when the deceased is unknown and to estimate the post-mortem interval. Finally, you will undertake a Forensic Science Research Project in your final year that will give you the opportunity to plan, design and execute a piece of research into a topic of your interest that is relevant to your field of study. You will work to answer a research question based on research and laboratory work using the skills you gained throughout the course. To help you with this, our Skills in Science unit will equip you with a range of skills you need for your research and for a career in science.