Verum was officialized on the 22th of January 2016.
Verum aims to create an ever growing network of students and alumni of the master’s programme Forensic Science at the University of Amsterdam, through academic, professional and, most importantly, social activities.
Why the name Verum?
Forensic scientists can never say something about the truth with 100% certainty, which is reflected in the double meaning of ‘Verum’: on one hand, it means “truth” or “reality” , but on the other hand it means “however, nonetheless”. The combination of these meanings reflects the two sides of the coin that is forensic science: while forensic scientists aim to present an objective truth about findings or events, there is almost always an alternative plausible explanation for these findings, however unlikely it might be. One example in which this double meaning is encountered in practice is in Bayesian statistics, which is often present in modern forensic science and which helps forensic scientists to express their inability to demonstrate the absolute truth while at the same time giving more weight to one possible explanation of an event than to another.