The Department of Forensics will be newly established in SKKU next March. Over ten years have passed since the Korean police has utilized forensic science for investigation. Nonetheless, the technical level of forensic science has been insufficient to cope with the fast development of methods used to commit crimes. Subsequently, the need to foster skilled experts in the field has been growing. The Department of Forensics is to be established to meet this social demand, aiming to raise specialists who have a holistic view based on the knowledge about law. Professor Myung Sun Roh from Law School was appointed as the chair of this new department. He said, “since investigative agencies are only engrossed in on-the-job training, it is crucial to set up an educational institution to foster human resources.” The demand for specialists in forensics is expected to grow constantly because of the promising future of the study of forensics. Since it can be applied in various fields, it can be useful not only in criminal investigations, but also in auditing enterprises or tracking insurance fraud.
There are related departments already set up in schools such as Chungnam National University or Soonchunhyang University, but they were all departments from special graduate schools rather than general graduate schools, so there is a hardship for normal undergraduates to enter. It is first time for a department of forensics to be included in a general graduate school which provides a valid doctorate degree.
The courses offered by the department is divided into three parts: “digital forensics,” which is about tracking evidences left in computers or on the Internet, “law science,” a course analyzing drugs, poisons, voices and sounds, and “forensic safety,” which identifies traffic accidents or fires. Besides the new department, the Research Center of Forensic Science Analysis will be also founded along with the department to design diverse investigative methods and develop further forensic techniques.