NORMDECS

Normative Decision Structures of Forensic Interpretation in the Legal Process

Normative Decision Structures of Forensic Interpretation in the Legal Process (NORMDECS) is a scientific research project, initially funded by an (ERC-type) SNSF-Starting-Grant, hosted at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) (2016–2021), and has since developed into a permanent direction of research. The project ambitions to study fundamental questions of forensic interpretation through probability and decision theory. It aims at conceptualising and substantiating forensic inference, both on a theoretical and practical account, as an integral part of a wider framework for coherent decision analysis in the law.

The project features a highly multidisciplinary perspective by connecting core forensic science and the law –– as the main applied research areas –– with computational statistics and philosophy of science acting as supporting disciplines.

NORMDECS, led by Alex Biedermann (Principal Investigator), is hosted at UNIL’s School of Criminal Justice (SCJ). Affiliated to the Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice and Public Administration, the SCJ provides an ideal environment wherein science and the law rely naturally on established ways of interdisciplinary collaboration, which makes it ideally suited to host this research project.