VISITORS to the Defence Academy at Shrivenham last week were given an explosive insight into a part of the base that few people realise exists.

As well as being a military establishment, the Shrivenham site is also home to the Cranfield University Defence and Security School, a world leader in its field just nine miles from Swindon.

Last Tuesday, the Cranfield Forensic Institute, a key part of the school, threw open its doors to welcome prospective students on its internationally renowned postgraduate courses.

The taught masters courses are targeted at civilian students, offering specialisms in broad forensic investigation, ballistics, explosives, digital forensics, archaeology and anthropology.

Professor Keith Rogers, Director of the Forensic Institute, said: “Many people think of this as a military base but we’re actually an ordinary university doing all the things that ordinary universities do.

“Yes, we are on a secure site but that has huge advantages – for instance we’re the only UK university with a licence to produce explosives and we have an armoury with 1,000 weapons that can be fired if we need to.

“Our applicants are mainly recent university graduates and we would certainly welcome more applications from local students.”

During the open day, students were given the opportunity to visit the explosives range to observe a demonstration by the staff there.

It was a gripping show, from small table top demonstrations of combustion, to large scale explosions causing pressure waves that propelled the audience watching some distance away back into their seats.

There was also a tour of the extensive armoury, where weapons ranging from the ‘tommy gun’ made famous by Hollywood gangster movies to more contemporary weapons used in conflicts around the world were on show.

These unique facilities are staffed by experts in their field, with the security of being inside a military base offering students the opportunity to study their subjects at first hand and not just in a theoretical setting.

However, the school is not all about guns and bombs – among the staff are experts in the forensic examination of artwork, the investigation of bones and the analysis of digital communications.

When students study the excavation of mass graves for example, they have the benefit of being taught by faculty members who have worked extensively in Bosnia, Iraq and further afield as part of UN investigation teams looking into real-world atrocities.

Visitors at the open day also heard about Cranfield’s links with elite institutions around the world including Harvard University where students often go to participate in research.

The school is ranked alongside Oxford, Cambridge and University College London for its research achievements and boasts one of the top staff to student ratios in the UK.

With a high emphasis on employability, a survey found that 95 per cent of the school’s forensics students were in relevant work or engaged in research within six months of graduation.