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In 2008 the Philosophy Department decided to organise its impact strategy around the research activities of the Essex Autonomy Project (EAP). EAP research has been conducted in two distinct strands with different research outputs and impacts. This case study summarises the impact of our work concerning the legal concept of best interests decision-making. Through EAP public policy roundtables, EAP technical reports, and through work with public organisations and public officials, EAP research has informed professional and public discussion of the law of best interests, has had impact in the development of public policy guidelines for implementing legal requirements, and has played a role in the review and reform of existing regulatory frameworks.
This case-study is based on research conducted by Professor Francis at Keele University which provides insights into three crucial aspects of social mobility and access to the legal professions: legal executives, part-time law students, and legal work experience. This work has made a significant contribution to practitioner debate, practitioner practice and policy change. Key impacts of this research have been the promotion of debates within the legal profession around diversity which has led both to a much wider professional and government awareness of these issues in the UK, and the development of policies and schemes to address such issues.
By exploring the social and economic effects of cuts in funding for legal aid, this research directly influenced legislation aimed at preserving legal aid for welfare benefit appeals. This was a major victory for campaigners who cited the research to lobby against cuts proposed by the 2011 Legal Aid Bill. The research informed a proposed House of Lords amendment to the Bill. Although the amendment was turned back by the House of Commons, welfare benefit appeals on points of law were discussed during the second reading and retained within the scope of legal aid funding.
Research by Professor David Archard on the moral and legal status of children has improved health policy and care for extremely premature babies through its contribution to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report Critical Care Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine: Ethical Issues, released in late 2006. During 2008-13 the report's guidelines have come to be followed across the NHS in the clinical care of extremely premature babies and are regarded by doctors as the best available advice. Through its contribution to the Nuffield report, Archard's research has helped to bring improved and more consistent health care provision to extremely premature babies and their families across the UK.
Research in Southampton Law School's Health Ethics and Law (HEAL) network has made a significant contribution to improving the way in which ethical issues in health are addressed in the UK and further afield. HEAL members' specialist research has informed several Department of Health policy documents and policy makers, as well as the strategies of organisations governing bioethics. Their recommendations have influenced professional guidelines for clinicians and lawyers, defining and underpinning good practice so as to protect and benefit service users. Increased understanding of ethical issues in health among the wider public has been promoted through high-profile media coverage.
Professor John Finnis has been engaged in a programme of research in legal and constitutional theory. His work on the legal and political responsibilities of UK ministers when acting to affect the law of a British Overseas Territory played a pivotal role in the decision of the House of Lords to reverse the Court of Appeal`s interpretation of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (CVLA). The Court of Appeal had held that UK ministers could not properly legislate in the interests of the UK as a whole (including its dependent territories), but only in the interests of the particular territory itself. Relying on Finnis`s arguments, the House of Lords changed that precept. Finnis`s work also persuaded members of the House of Lords to express doubts about a central holding of an earlier decision, which concerned the capacity in which ministers acted in legislating in dependent territories. Finnis`s arguments have been relied on in legal argument in later cases, and have been recognised and reaffirmed in subsequent Court of Appeal and Supreme Court judgments. In this way, they have helped to change fundamental constitutional principles affecting not only all citizens in the UK, but also those in its Overseas Territories around the world.
Professor Faundez's research has set out how legal reform projects should be designed and implemented in order to be successful in the context of existing local conditions and to ensure access to justice for indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. His work as policy advisor both to development agencies (the World Bank, the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), and the Inter-American Development Bank) and to Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) (Amnesty International, the World Justice Project) has helped these organisations broaden their approach to the design, implementation and evaluation of legal reform projects. The range of his publications - from academic articles to specially commissioned reports - has ensured a fruitful dialogue with practitioners in the field of law and governance.
Research undertaken by Barlow at Exeter into cohabitation, marriage and the law has shaped, informed and influenced long-running public and policy debates in Britain over the need to reform aspects of family (property) law, in light of widespread public confusion and on-going societal shifts. The research findings on attitudes to cohabitation and marriage, community of property and pre-nuptial agreements and the law, each cited in public consultation papers and reports advocating reform, have influenced the Law Commission and judiciary in the UK and informed German policymakers. The cohabitation research in particular has-
A core claim in Emily Jackson's 2001 book and 2002 article was that the process for assessing infertile people's fitness to parent before being allowed to have fertility treatment was unduly invasive and discriminatory.
As a result of this research, the process was changed. In the UK, infertile patients are now presumed to be fit parents, and withholding of fertility treatment on child welfare grounds is only possible if the child would be at risk of serious harm. The link between the research and the policy change is affirmed by Professor Lisa Jardine, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) between 2008 and 2012.
Research carried out by Professor Christopher Newdick in the School of Law, University of Reading, explored the ways in which individualistic `rights-based' models of healthcare cause problems within areas of finite public resources, such as NHS treatment rationing and priority-setting. By developing a new ethical model to help settle individual competing rights claims, the research produced impact by changing the policies and practices of a series of NHS Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) who implemented new Ethical Frameworks informed by Newdick's findings. By reframing the treatment rationing debate, and working directly with PCTs, his research produced a new, more robust and defensible way of balancing individual and collective interests within NHS decision-making.