Division Leader: Dr David Blackwood
Our programmes are innovative, industrially relevant, challenging, and draw on the professional and research expertise of our staff.
Our Research Centres are internationally recognised and contribute to our understanding of the sustainability of our natural, agricultural and urban environments.
Our Division
The Division of Environment and Forensic Science covers a broad range of subjects including civil engineering, forensic and investigative sciences, policing and security studies and project and environmental management and technology. The programmes have a common focus on the application of scientific, engineering and project management principles to equip our graduates with key skills to meet contemporary challenges.
The relevance of the courses is ensured by our research and our close links with industry. The Division's professional training tutors are committed to placing students in industrial placements and relevant, often paid, supervised work experience.
All the courses make extensive use of the Division's well equipped laboratories, which provide practical experience to students. Our engineering students have access to water, environmental, materials, soil mechanics, geology, structural engineering, and transportation engineering laboratories, whilst on-site surveying and computational software develop their modelling and GIS skills.
Our forensic science and our policing and security students make extensive use of specialised crime scene simulation areas (Rankin House, a bank, pub and garage), our microscopy suite and our range of analytical laboratories. These allow students first hand experience of scientific analysis within a criminal/civil investigation context.
Our Undergraduate Programmes
The Division of Environment and Forensic Science offers five honours degree programmes that are specifically designed to enable students to acquire the skills and knowledge that are necessary to contribute to the development of a safer and more sustainable society. They are the BSc (Hons) Degree in Civil Engineering, BSc (Hons) Forenic Science and BSc (Hons) Policing and Security, BSc (Hons) Sustainable Architectural Design and BSc (Hons) Renewable Energy Technology. The BSc Forensic Science degree is accredited by the Forensic Science Society and the BSc Civil Engineering degree is accredited by the Institute of Civil Engineers. A feature of our programmes is the high degree of engagement with the professional world through laboratory and project work, work placements and through field visits together with input to programmes from industry professionals. Examples of these activities include:
Our Postgraduate Programmes
We currently offer seven masters degree programmes. Five are in an interrelated suite of environment programmes; MSc in Urban Water and Environmental Management, MSc in Industrial Environmental Management, and MSc in Water Pollution Control, MSc Environment and Business, and MSc Energy and Environment. These have been developed and are operated in collaboration with Dundee Business School and the School of Computing and Engineering Systems. Emphasis is given to the practical application of Environmental Management within industry, underpinned by an appropriate theoretical rigour, which produces post-graduates that are highly sought after by employers. The courses are timetabled to allow participation by part-time students, many of whom have been sponsored by their employers. The programmes in our environment master suite are all accredited by the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management. The MSc Urban Water and Environmental Management is additionally accredited by the Institution of Civil Engineers. We also operate a unique MSc Construction Management programme in partnership with ESCT, Vincennes, Paris for construction professionals employed within leading French construction companies. Our most recent MSc in Forensic Science provides opportunities for postgraduate study in investigative and analytical sciences in a forensic sciences context thus ensuring the wider employability of our students on completion of the programme.
Our Research
The research work in the Division contributes in a major way to the University’s research strategy areas of environmental and forensic sciences and environmental technology and management. The research interests of the academic staff of the Division are diverse and include sustainable urban drainage systems, anaerobic digestion technologies, sustainability assessment and decision support tools, microbial physiology, environmental microbiology and technology, fingerprint evidence evaluation and systems approaches to complex environmental and biological systems. Our research approach is often multidisciplinary and industry facing.
The Division includes the University's leading research centres, the Urban Water Technology Centre and The Scottish Informatics Mathematics Biology and Statistics Centre (SIMBIOS). UWTC focuses on knowledge transfer and applied research, and provides services to the environment, water and manufacturing industries and SIMBIOS address specific environmental problems and the mathematical modelling of biological systems and their interactions with the physico-chemical environment. Additionally, both the Forensic Science and the Policing and Security programmes benefit from staff links with the Investigation, Security, Policing & Intelligence (I-SPI) Research Group, a University wide research initiative.
The expertise of our staff is much sought after by professionals, and academic members of the Division actively consult with major companies in theUKand internationally. Consequently the Division have a formidable track record in combining academic skills with commercial expertise in its many projects carried out to date. The cutting-edge knowledge obtained from these activities enhances our undergraduate programmes and enables us offer research led Masters programmes.
