The EPSRC crime prevention and detection technologies programme

The function and role of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is described. The EPSRC has launched a research programme in Technologies for Crime Prevention and Detection. The aim is to encourage the engineers and physical scientists to develop the next generation of technologies for preventing and detecting crime. The Crime Technology programme is stimulating scientists and engineers to think about how their discipline and expertise can help combat crime and improve security. The projects are carried out in universities and have been selected competitively following peer review. They all have close user collaboration with police forces, forensic science laboratories or commercial companies to help ensure that the research outputs will be taken up and in the longer term deployed operationally. The programme also supports networks of university researchers and user organisations around potentially high impacting technology themes, with the aim of building multidisciplinary links and generating high quality research proposals from university researchers in partnership with users. The UK has a strong research presence in imaging technologies. This is reflected in many of the research projects supported by the EPSRC that have an obvious relevance to combating criminal activities.