After a four-year stint at the University of Wollongong, criminologist Professor Andrew Goldsmith (pictured) will return to Flinders Law School in July to take up one of the Vice-Chancellor’s Strategic Professorships.

Professor Goldsmith – who was instrumental in the development of criminal justice studies at Flinders over 12 years, an area which performed well in last year’s Excellence in Research for Australia rankings – spoke about his ambitious research and teaching agenda with Flinders Indaily.

“The role is intended to build further the research profile of criminal justice at Flinders,” Professor Goldsmith said.

“One of the key vehicles for that will be working to establish a new centre in criminology, as well as to bring in international linkages and to run appropriate shorts courses and workshops in special areas,” he said.

The successful Illicit Networks Workshop, a collaboration with the University of Montreal which regularly draws together international academics and practitioners interested the analysis of terrorism and transnational and organised crime networks, will move to Flinders.

Professor Goldsmith also hopes to advance a program in integrity studies, which explores the fields of anti-corruption and public sector governance, and a project which examines the impact of organised crime on post-conflict situations.

“I’m particularly interested in looking at police peace-keeping operations,” he said.

“That’s a conversation I’m having with other academic partners around the world and with the Australian Federal Police.”

He said the move back to Flinders was an opportunity “to rejoin a unit that has been quite successful, to which I’d made a contribution previously, and to which I hope I can continue to make a contribution”.

As Executive Director of the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention at the University of Wollongong, Professor Goldsmith had been invited by Major-General Yem of the People’s Police Academy to visit Vietnam in 2010.