Jens AMENDT

President's letter

                Welcome to the website of the European Association for Forensic Entomology - feel free to check the different opportunities and sections created for your information. EAFE, founded in 2002, is still a young and growing association with about 100 members and 41 associate members. This growth reflects the growing interest by the forensic and entomological community in forensic entomology, but at the same time highlights the need for guidelines for the science and support for it from an association like EAFE. To cope with those growing responsibilities, EAFE has to develop itself, becoming a serious and professional partner for the members of the user forensic community, for example, police and legal authorities. This will be ensured by regular meetings and workshops, to raise awareness and knowledge. We have just returned from an excellent example of such a meeting in Brussels, organized by the National Institute for Criminalistics and Criminology, with 64 contributions from 20 countries from all over the world. It was a pleasure to participate in the meeting and the Board of the EAFE wants to thank the organizers, especially Luc Bourguignon and Francoise Hubrecht, for their excellent work. The next EAFE meeting will be held from 21st to 24th May, 2008, on Crete and we are happy to see that EAFE finally meets the beach!

Advanced education and training during the annual meetings is a major task for EAFE, but of course the framework of the Association (constitution, membership, etc.) must be fine tuned too. We are hopeful that EAFE is still developing along a good path, but pleased that several ideas to improve its development are being considered. Therefore, the Board of the EAFE will distribute a questionnaire to its current members with a view to adjusting the constitution to strengthen its position as a qualified partner for legal authorities and its members. I hope that you will support our efforts.

See you on Crete in 2008!

                   Jens Amendt - President of E.A.F.E. -  May 2007