Technology offers order, reproducibility, scalability, and solutions to many of the challenges we face when it comes to tackling uncertainty and risk. Yet, at its core, forensic science is about people, and ultimately serves people in enabling a system of justice that can be trusted. We are in danger of losing the unique capabilities that come from human ingenuity that can unlock secrets and piece the clues together. We need to hold human creativity together with advancing technological tools and capabilities. We need to think differently.
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It is such an honor to be with you here today at HIDS.
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I'm Professor Ruth Morgan.
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I'm Professor of Crime and Forensic Science
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at University College London in the UK.
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I'm often asked, how did I get into forensic science?
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And to be fair, that is a great question usually, isn't it?
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Because most of us have very different answers
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to that question.
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But even with that caveat, it does often surprise people
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when I say that I started off in geography.
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So you might think, geography,
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how do you get from geography to forensic science?
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Well, I was working on a research project.
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We were using electron microscopy
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to look at a very particular mineral
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to reconstruct past events.
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And we realized that if we used exactly the same technique,
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the same minerals, but we just reduced the timeline,
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we could go from reconstructing events
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over tens of thousands of years
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to reconstructing events over tens of hundreds of hours
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or days.
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So we could start working out
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where's this vehicle been in the last couple of months,
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where's this pair of shoes been in the last couple of days?
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And that became very relevant
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when you're trying to reconstruct crime events.
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And that was fascinating.
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I was absolutely fascinated by that.
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But what got me really hooked was a case.
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It was a murder case and it all started in December 2000.
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There was a young woman
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and she was outside of a nightclub at closing time.
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And she was having an argument with her partner.
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And the argument ended with her going off in one direction
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and him going off in the other.
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She went home, he went off to see a friend.
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And that was the last time that she was seen alive.
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Two days later, her body was discovered
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in the undergrowth of a local golf club.
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Her partner was arrested for murder
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and his friend was arrested for perverting the course
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of justice for helping to dispose of the body.
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Three years later, I'm sitting in an office.
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It's one of those really cold, chilly, damp,
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autumnal days that we get a awful lot of in Oxford in the UK.
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And I had the box file from this murder case.
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And I had all of the papers out around me.
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And that afternoon, I was reading the judges summing up.
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And as I was reading that judges summing up,
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I got what I can really only describe to you
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as that ice in the pit of your stomach feeling.
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Because what became apparent was that the entire verdict
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of this case rested on a single piece of evidence.
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There were these metallic microscopic particles
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that they'd found on the victim's clothing
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and on the seats in the suspect's vehicle.
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And they were absolutely critical to this case
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because it was assumed that these microscopic metallic
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particles were incredibly rare
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and that because they were so small
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and so rounded in their morphology
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that once they were transferred onto clothing,
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they would fall off very rapidly.
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And so that meant that the victim had to have been
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in that vehicle very shortly before her body
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was deposited at the golf course.
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But there was no other evidence.
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There was no blood, there were no finger marks,
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there was no DNA.
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It all came down to these particles,
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13 of them on the victim's clothing,
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and five of them on the vehicle's seat.
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The jury reached guilty verdicts.
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But it really concerned us that these particles,
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this critical piece of evidence,
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was essentially based on two assumptions.
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The assumption that these particles were rare
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and the assumption that these particles
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once they were transferred onto clothing
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would fall off quickly.
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So we started to do some experiments.
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We wanted to test those assumptions
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and we did a whole range of experiments.
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And what we were able to identify
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was that these particles weren't nearly as rare
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as it had been originally thought.
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You get more than 4,000 of them
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every time you use a disposable cigarette lighter.
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And once those particles are transferred onto clothing,
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they can last for an awful lot longer than you might expect.
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So after 18 hours,
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we still had a very significant proportion
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of those particles remaining on the clothing.
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So what that data did
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was that it changed the meaning
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of that science evidence in that case.
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Because it changed the window of opportunity
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for those particles to get transferred
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onto the victim's clothing.
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Seven years later,
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that case was heard again at the court of appeal
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and those sentences were quashed.
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The cases reopened
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and the police were able to identify the real culprit
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who was arrested, tried and convicted.
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It's now 20 years since that rather chilly,
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gray or thumbnail afternoon in Oxford.
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And I've spent an awful lot of that time
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doing research to try and address this very deep seated
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and pervasive problem
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that we're seeing in forensic science.
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Which is that evidence can tell us
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everything we need to know.
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But only if we know what it means.
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It's essentially a challenge
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of the interpretation of evidence.
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And so we've been trying to do research
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to tackle this along with the whole community.
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We've done so much research over the last few years.
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But what's very clear is that all these years later,
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even though we've got so much more data,
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so much more insight,
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we understand how traces behave in the environment
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more than we ever did.
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We understand how people evaluate
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what that evidence means
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better than we've ever done before.
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And yet, this challenge remains.
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It is a persistent challenge.
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And it's got me thinking,
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why is it that this is such a persistent challenge?
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It's a naughty persistent challenge
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that just doesn't seem to be going away.
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And when you look at it,
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forensic science does have some very similar hallmarks
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to other naughty persistent challenges,
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whether that's health or education
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or the environment and sustainability.
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Forensic science is a complex system.
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We've got multiple stakeholders,
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each with their different needs and their drivers.
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We've got multiple disciplines,
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all with a role to play,
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from sciences through to the social sciences.
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We've got a system where actually we need answers rapidly
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and urgently because people's lives are at stake.
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And we're dealing with a system
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that is changing at remarkable speed.
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The impact of digital evidence
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in forensic science over the last five years
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has been nothing short of transformative.
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So what do we do
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when we have these kinds of challenges,
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these big persistent complex situations?
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Well, naturally we try and fix them, don't we?
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And the way we start to try and fix them
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is we take this big complex situation
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and we start breaking it down
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into smaller definable chunks.
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And then we focus on each one of those one at a time
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to try and make progress.
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And when we do that in complex systems,
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we make incremental developments in specific areas.
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But what we can't do by doing that
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is tackle the deep seated challenge
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that underpins the whole thing.
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It's Einstein who said that insanity
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is doing the same thing again and again
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and expecting different results.
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And he also said that we will never solve our challenges
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with the same thinking that created them.
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And so as we look at this deep seated challenge
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in forensic science that manifests itself
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in so many different ways,
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it becomes very clear that to tackle that challenge,
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we've got to find a way to bring together
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both those incremental changes and developments
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alongside with an ability to look at the whole system.
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We're gonna have to start thinking differently
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and we're gonna have to start thinking critically.
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But how do we do that?
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Now I don't know about you,
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but often in life it can feel like
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we're constantly having to make decisions.
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And those decisions can often feel
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like they're mutually exclusive.
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So you have to decide between form or function.
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Or you have to decide between the efficient route
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or the adventurous route.
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And Jim Collins and Jerry Porres would call this
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the tyranny of awe.
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There are lots of situations they would say
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where we don't actually have to decide
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between two things.
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We can find a way to have both.
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And when I say both,
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I don't mean finding some sort of midway point,
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some sort of soggy compromise between the two options.
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I mean, genuinely having both.
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And Collins and Porres would call that
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the genius of and.
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So as we're looking into the future of forensic science
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and thinking about how we can solve
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the big challenges that we face,
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this seems like a really good place to start.
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If we need to think critically and differently
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to solve those challenges,
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we need to start finding these genius of ands.
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And it seems to me that there are three key places
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where we should do this.
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And the first one is around our science.
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So we would all agree that excellent science
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is that the absolute heart of excellent forensic science.
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So when we're looking at our science,
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making sure that it's accurate and repeatable
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and reproducible and pushing the boundaries,
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we need to be thinking about the traces themselves,
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whether that's DNA through to explosive residues,
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and whether it's physical traces or digital traces.
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And we need to be thinking about how we can understand
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those traces and interpret them effectively.
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And at the same time,
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we also need to be thinking about the people,
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the people that are making those critical decisions
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at every single step from crime scene through to court
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as they evaluate what the evidence means.
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And then the second area where we need to find
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the genius of and is around quality standards.
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And again, quality standards,
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absolutely critical to excellent forensic science.
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And we need to be thinking,
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how can we incorporate and bring in to our quality standards,
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the explicit forms of knowledge that are useful
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for being able to write, stand in a manual,
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to codify, to actually create standard operating procedures.
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And at the same time,
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how can we make sure that we value the things
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that the tacit forms of knowledge bring,
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which comes from experience and time
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and learning by doing.
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And that's going to mean we need specialists
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who bring really deep domain specific knowledge.
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But we're also going to need generalists,
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generalists who consider those intersections
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and spot the patterns and the themes and join the dots.
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And then the third area that we need to find
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the genius of and is around impact.
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How do we connect our science to the practice,
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to what's going on in the real world?
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And that's going to mean we're going to need to focus
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very much on going deep and getting the insights
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and the data that we need to really push our science
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to the limits.
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And at the same time, we're also going to need
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to make sure that we're able to tell the stories
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of that data in ways that really connect
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with the specific audience,
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whether that's investigators or members of the jury.
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If we can find these genius of ands in these three areas,
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our science, quality standards,
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and the impact of our science,
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we're going to start being able to see the whole system.
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And that's going to mean we're going to be able to start
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seeing the root causes of an awful other challenges
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that we're facing.
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And then we can start tackling the challenges themselves,
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the root causes of them, not just the symptoms.
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So how do we get to these ands?
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This is something I've been thinking about an awful lot.
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And it's been part of the reason we've been setting up
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a new institute at the university.
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It's a collaboration between the faculty of engineering
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and the faculty of the arts and humanities.
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And what we've been doing is we've been going out
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across all the different disciplines,
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from the sciences to the social sciences,
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to engineering, medicine, the arts and the humanities
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and engineering.
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And what we're beginning to see is that if we want to find
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the ands, we need to be thinking differently and critically.
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And that means we've got to start thinking collectively.
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When was the last time that you had an interaction
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that just completely changed your perspective?
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Or a conversation that left you having had your mind changed?
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There's one conversation for me that just really,
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really sticks in my mind.
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It was a conversation where there were light bulbs
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going off left, right, centre.
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Everywhere we looked, there were opportunities and possibilities.
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And I came away feeling like absolutely nothing
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could possibly be impossible.
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So if we want to find these ands,
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we've got to start thinking differently.
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But what we're seeing is that when we start finding those ands,
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we're almost always in a meadow.
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So what do I mean by the meadow?
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Well, imagine with me, if you will, a beautiful sunny day.
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And you're there and you're looking out over this incredible meadow landscape.
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You've got hundreds of different plants and flowers all coexisting.
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And as you look out over this landscape that changes over the seasons
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and evolves over the years, you see just how diverse it is.
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And it's not a huge leap to make, to apply that to ourselves.
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Each one of us has very different backgrounds and disciplinary forms of
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knowledge
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and experiences and ways of seeing the world.
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And the really great thing about a meadow is just how completely different it
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is
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to a field of wheat or a field of corn.
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In a field of wheat, you generally have a single crop, all in very neat,
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straight lines.
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It's very efficient, it's very dense.
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But in a meadow, you've got hundreds of different plants and flowers all co
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existing,
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the ones that you'd expect, but also the ones that you might not.
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And if you look out over this meadow, it becomes clear that it's not just about
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the plants and the flowers.
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For that meadow to thrive, for it to grow, it also needs the birds and the
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animals and the insects.
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And what the research is showing us in ecology is that the B is the most
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critical part of that ecosystem.
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The B that travels from plant to plant, to collecting pollen, and cross poll
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inating as it goes.
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So in this picture, we're not just the plants and the flowers.
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We need to be the bees too, the bees that are going out,
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encountering different perspectives and cross pollinating.
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So what is it like being out in the meadow?
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I think it looks different for different people at different times,
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but there are probably three core characteristics of what it's like to be in
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the meadow.
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The first is around conversation.
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You know, there's two, three, four-way dialogues where people come really open
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to grappling with an idea or a question.
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They listen, they're contributing, and really critically, there's no precon
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ceived idea of where you're going to end up.
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The conversation that I mentioned just now with all the light bulbs.
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For me, that was a conversation that sticks in my head because it was a
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conversation about science leadership,
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which might not sound the most promising for the most exciting conversation.
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And we had a number of scientists around the table, but we also had a clinician
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a publisher, we had a strategist from the advertising industry, we had a futur
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ist,
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and we also had a close-up magician. It definitely wasn't the usual suspects.
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But my goodness, it took us to places I could never have imagined in advance.
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The second characteristic of being in the meadow is around storytelling.
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Now, I don't know about you, but I've actually lost count of the number of
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times I've been in a meeting and got completely lost in jargon.
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Or come away from a meeting and realise that we've been talking completely
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cross-purposes
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because we're using the same words, but we mean different things by them.
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Being out in the meadow is about finding a common language.
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And the universal language of humanity is storytelling.
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So being in the meadow is about becoming master-crafters of our stories,
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telling our stories in ways that connect with the people and the challenges
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that we're facing.
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And then the third characteristic of being out in the meadow is all around
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space for exploration and discovery.
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And it's one of the reasons that we have called our institute, the Aristo
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Institute,
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after Aristoist, the Greek god of beekeeping, because what we want to do is
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create opportunities for people to get out into the meadow,
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to explore and to discover.
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But also we want to enable those spaces where people can bring all that
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knowledge and insight that has been collected
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and bring it together so that synthesis work can happen, so that we can
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transform that proverbial pollen
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into proverbial honey.
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Because it's the honey that's going to give us the new insights, the new imagin
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ings,
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and the new solutions to the challenges that we're facing.
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So how can we be enabling that transformation of pollen into honey?
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Well, I think we need to think about this from a couple of different
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perspectives.
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The top down and the bottom up.
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So if you think about the top down, if you think about as institutions,
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how can we be enabling our people to get out into the meadow?
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There's an awful lot of things that we know.
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We know that it's good to eat a balanced diet.
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And it's good to take exercise.
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We know that doom scrolling often isn't great for our mental health.
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But how often does that knowledge actually make its way into our experience of
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the day to day?
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If we want to see change, we can't rely on will parallel.
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So as institutions, how can we be thinking structurally to enable our people to
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get out into the meadow?
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How can we be creating opportunities for that to happen?
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How can we be making it easy for people to actually take those opportunities?
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How can we be creating a culture where we celebrate being in the meadow?
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How can we weave recognition and reward into our culture so that people are
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incentivized
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to take those opportunities?
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And then there's the grassroots, isn't there?
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There's how do we actually get ourselves out into the meadow?
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But I think there are again two things that are absolutely critical to making
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this happen.
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The first one is about being brave, to be open to the possible and able to
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imagine.
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The second one is to be humble.
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Humble enough to concede that a single discipline, a single sector, a single
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perspective
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isn't going to be able to solve these big challenges.
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Because that opens us up to being able to be curious and to start asking
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questions,
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particularly those questions that start with what if.
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So just take a moment.
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Where is your meadow?
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Let's take that passion that we have for the justice system as forensic
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scientists.
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Let's recognise that we have the most incredible capacity when we work together
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to think differently and to create a very bright future.
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So let's be brave and humble.
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Let's be open to imagining.
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Let's be curious and asking questions.
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Let's start a conversation.
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