Dr Jessica Woodhams has been successful in her application to the Leverhulme Trust for a grant to set up the first international network dedicated to research on crime linkage. Crime linkage is a police practice used to detect serial offenders in the absence of physical forensic evidence, such as DNA and fingerprints. It relies on identifying similar and distinctive behaviours across two or more offences which point to them having been committed by the same offender. The new network, called C-LINK (Crime Linkage International NetworK), will include police representatives and researchers from seven different countries. The grant includes financial support for the development of a website for the network, as well as two key research projects involving the seven member countries which could not happen without the Leverhulme Trust supporting the international collaboration of the network members. Over a two-year period, the University of Birmingham will host three events whereby international figures in the field of crime linkage will come together to develop a research strategy for the future and organise the first international conference on crime linkage.

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