Facilitating Research: A New Research Collaboration on Eyewitness Memory between UK and South Korean Cognitive Psychologists

We propose to convene and develop a new and sustainable UK-South Korea Eyewitness Memory Research Network that will facilitate critical social science research and innovation and protect against security threats both in the UK and the Indo-Pacific region. The UK-South Korea Eyewitness Memory Network will deliver collaborations that will have significant and enduring impacts on social science theory and practice, and early career researchers. Drawing on the expertise and wider networks of the investigators, the Network will focus on two key strands of research that address critical investigation and security challenges: increasing lineup identification accuracy and reliability, and improving investigative interviews with eyewitnesses, victims, and sources, to enhance intelligence gathering, statements, and testimony. The investigators in the UK and South Korea are leading psychological scientists, senior as well as early career, who are well networked and have overlapping research interests in eyewitness memory. Their complementary research and methodological expertise will catalyze cutting-edge world-leading research on eyewitness memory, which plays a key role in apprehending guilty suspects, obtaining intelligence to prevent crimes and recover evidence, and elicit information about security threats, as examples. The Network will stimulate high quality cross-context research and knowledge transfer between UK and South Korean researchers and legal practitioners (e.g., security professionals, police). The objectives will be achieved through reciprocal research visits, holding an academic conference, and external engagement activities (e.g., a dedicated website in English and Korean, social media presence) that will facilitate connectivity, partnerships, and a collaborative research agenda.