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NIST Associate Director for Laboratory Programs Willie May watches as Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi, Chief Executive Officer of the Netherlands Forensic Institute, signs an agreement for the two organizations to collaborate for the advancement of forensic science. The signing took place during the Forensics@NIST 2012 symposium on Nov. 29, 2012, at NIST's Gaithersburg, Md., headquarters.
Two organizations with mutual interests in forensic science—the science of collecting and analyzing evidence to help solve crimes—have forged a partnership to facilitate the advancement of technologies, methods, practices and standards in the field. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Nov. 29, 2012, as part of the recent "Forensics@NIST 2012"* symposium held at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md.
NIST and NFI agreed to collaborate through activities focused on the following areas:
- Research and development
- Development of forensic standards
- Education and training
- Forensic governance (measures to ensure the ethical, transparent and accountable practice of forensic science)
The new agreement seeks to improve the accuracy and reliability of forensic science in both countries by the sharing of expertise, research findings and programs of mutual interest, as well as aligning their respective responsibilities to the forensic science community (such as developing calibration methods and reference standards, advancing state-of-the-art measurement techniques, and helping establish performance and procedural criteria).
Signing the MOU for their respective organizations were Willie May, NIST Associate Director for Laboratory Programs, and Tjark Tjin-A-Tsoi, Chief Executive Officer of NFI.