ICPR recruiting for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow

The Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, Birkbeck, is seeking a postdoctoral researcher for a project on policing, social media and digital forensics.

This is an exciting post for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow who has experience of conducting qualitative research on policing and/or criminal justice. You will be joining a dynamic and multi-disciplinary research team working on a Dawes Trust-funded project, ‘Digital Forensics and Social Media: Challenges and Opportunities for Law Enforcement’. You’ll be located at the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research in the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London.

This innovative project is exploring the challenges and opportunities associated with the management of ‘digital forensics’. The project is looking in particular at criminal evidence derived from social media and messaging applications, and at how such evidence is managed and utilised in the investigation and prosecution of serious sexual and violent offences. Your role will entail the examination of case-study prosecutions drawn from the Metropolitan Police Service, Kent Police and Essex Police; this work will include conducting interviews with senior investigating officers, detectives and police staff from the investigation team, and lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service; and reviewing case documentation. You will also conduct thematic analysis of the data and contribute to report writing. 

The study is led by the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, with partners from the Birkbeck Institute for Data Analytics, the UCL Centre for Forensic Sciences and the Institute for Global City Policing at University College London, and Perpetuity Research.

To see more information, including how to apply, please click here