From 6 to 10 October 2008 will be held in Madrid, at the School of Mining Engineering, Rios Rosas Street, 21 (Madrid) the First International Congress of Forensic Engineering INGEFOR-08, with the aim of bringing together professionals from both the world of Technology and Law, to raise the study of the interrelationship of these two fields, mainly in support of engineering in the work of experts and judicial investigation.
The development of science and technology has brought technology to such a high level of precision that the devices and applications that are a reality today would have been considered unfeasible only fifty years ago.
For this reason, what was previously unobvious now appears with crystal clarity to the eyes of the forensic investigator thanks to sophisticated procedures of analysis, tracing, scanning, measuring, cataloguing, dating, reconstruction and identification. The integration, application and systematization of all these procedures have constituted processes and protocols of action that have driven all fields of contemporary knowledge. However, it has been forensic science, so in need of rigour and accuracy, which, to a greater extent, has benefited from this high level of technological sophistication. In fact, the purpose of the forensic investigator’s work is to establish the facts and the way in which they unfolded, objectively and precisely, in an indubitable manner, before a court of law. And this has been the role of the forensic expert, traditionally linked to fields of science such as medicine, biology, biochemistry, biometry, to collaborate with justice in the clarification of all types of criminal cases.
However, technological development has led to a greater relevance of technique and, consequently, of engineering, to investigate, determine and demonstrate all types of actions directly related to crime or the failure, conscious or not, of all types of mechanisms and infrastructures. This new reality has demanded a greater technification and specialization of forensic science, which has accepted the challenge and has overcome it through forensic engineering.
Thus, the implementation of forensic engineering worldwide has materialized not only a progressive trend towards specialization, which has manifested itself in the constant emergence of new disciplines, subjects, branches and applications, but also the incorporation of new work environments such as the field of accidentology, structural failures or inadequacy of materials that have shaped the nature of forensic engineering.
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that forensic engineering today deals with the investigation and clarification of situations or events related to scientific or technical fields for the establishment of legal responsibility, whether in a criminal environment or of any other nature. For this reason forensic engineering draws from all branches of engineering, science and law to achieve its objective.
From all of the above we can see the high level of fragmentation and diversification that exists today in all types of entities, institutions and organisms directly or indirectly related to forensic engineering. It is therefore necessary a greater coordination and unification among all those who are part of this macro-discipline.
The aforementioned unification and coordination, so essential to reach an optimum level of efficiency and effectiveness, with the consequent beneficial repercussion for society, is one of the main objectives of INGEFOR-08. To achieve this, the most representative specialities of the main fields of current forensic engineering have been included in the congress, as it is essential to provide a global vision in which the work, research and experiences of the qualified experts in each of the subjects are not left incomplete or insufficiently applied due to a lack of relationship with related subjects or institutions or, perhaps, not so obviously linked.
The other main objective of INGEFOR-08 is constituted by the state of the art of the main disciplines of forensic engineering in order to verify procedures and methodologies as well as their efficiency and effectiveness. This will allow us to reach a consensus and perfect protocols of action and their possible systematization and standardization to streamline and streamline the processes of action as well as to preserve, safeguard and, subsequently, evaluate the expert evidence, which is the real field of work of the forensic engineer and, therefore, cannot be contaminated or altered in any way.
In order to achieve these objectives, the main international institutions, organizations and researchers have been invited to the meeting.