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This case study describes the creation and use of advanced simulation technology by international mining corporations to optimise high value metal recovery. The technology involved the development of advanced novel computational methods and software tools to model industrial scale heap leach processes for large scale industrial application at major mining operations. This focus on the development of optimised operational strategies has produced considerable economic benefits measured in the $multi-millions to industrial sponsors, including $58 million dollars in additional revenue for one multi-national corporation over one year following the adoption of engineered heaps based upon the advanced simulation tools from Swansea.
Since 2008, UK and overseas policies, practices and tools aimed at evaluating and promoting quality in schools and supporting student learning, attainment and progress have been profoundly influenced by research conducted at the University of Bristol. The work began in 2001 in the Graduate School of Education; from 2005, the School's efforts were complemented by those of the Centre for Multilevel Modelling. The research has generated original knowledge about school performance measures and school, teacher and context factors which promote student learning. This knowledge has transformed government and institutional policies and practices. New improved methods of evaluating schools and interventions in education (and other sectors) have been demonstrated and widely disseminated, thereby enhancing public understanding of institutional league tables and facilitating the scaling-up of new approaches nationally. The development of statistical methodology and MLwiN software and training has enabled more rigorous and sensitive quantitative analysis of educational datasets around the world, as well as wider take-up of this methodology by non academics.
Postoperative local recurrence affects 20-30% of patients with rectal cancer. Between 1993 and 2013, University of Leeds researchers identified the importance of pathology studies to show a disease-free margin around the excised tumour and how to predict this margin routinely and accurately using simple histopathology and preoperative MRI.
We also used photography in the pathological assessment of the quality of surgery and were instrumental in the adoption of modern techniques by professional organisations around the world.
Following adoption of our techniques in England and Scotland, local recurrence has halved with 10% better survival and cost savings of £60 million. Our methods have also become the gold standard in the treatment of rectal cancer patients around the world.
Sussex research has led to changes in how children are taught reading comprehension across the UK and increasingly in South America. The 2013 Primary National Curriculum for English emphasises the acquisition of skills for reading comprehension. The Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading, which cites many of Oakhill's research papers, fed directly into the revised National Curriculum, English. The increasing emphasis on skills for reading comprehension led Whatmuff to develop `inference training', a published training programme inspired by Oakhill's studies now used across the UK. Independently, a group of Educational Psychologists in Argentina developed a programme for primary age children, comprising a theoretical manual and work book that draws directly from Oakhill's research findings and is being implemented across South America.
Through active engagement in policy processes, systems research at Lincoln produced a sustained change in governmental and third sector approaches to citizenship education and hence citizen participation. Translating and refining the initial concepts, a network of Third Sector organisations and universities (including the researchers) ran successful pilot projects to benefit more than 1,300 people. This led to the inclusion of the `Take Part' concept in three government White Papers. Pathways to impact were two national learning frameworks, an £8.7 million programme (2009-2011), and a £0.77m capacity building cluster (2008-2013). The programme reached over 18,000 people nationally, who became more effectively involved in local democracy.
Research at York has had a direct impact on national guidance about the use of health technologies in the NHS. It provided methods that are used to assess whether a technology is expected to be a cost-effective use of NHS resources, how uncertain this assessment is likely to be and whether additional evidence is sufficiently valuable to recommend further research to support its widespread use. It has had an impact on the technologies available in the NHS and the evidence available to support their use: improving patient outcomes; saving NHS resources and strengthening the evidence base for clinical practice. It gives an explicit signal and incentive to manufacturers; informing development decisions and the type of evidence collected. It has had an international impact on how the adequacy of evidence is judged and research is prioritised; particularly in recent reforms in the United States (US) where the principles of this value of information (VOI) analysis are informing the prioritisation of $3.8bn for `comparative effectiveness research'. It has also informed the methods used in low and middle income countries, especially national agencies in health care systems in South East Asia and South America, as well as global funding bodies.
The research conducted through the C.Ind.Le project, between 2002 and 2006, was the first to reveal and catalogue the metacognitive and self-regulatory abilities of children in the 3-5 age range. The project outcomes included an observation instrument, now widely used by teachers in early years educational settings, and a training course on pedagogies supporting development of these abilities in young children. This research has had direct regional impact on practice at the Foundation Stage in Cambridgeshire, national impact through its influence on the 2012 revision of the DfE framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, and international impact through consultancy to the LEGO Foundation and other collaborations.
Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST) is an evidence-based, brief, group therapy for people with mild to moderate dementia. It was developed and evaluated by UCL in collaboration with Bangor University. Our research showed significant benefits in cognition and quality of life plus cost-effectiveness. Cognitive Stimulation for people with mild/moderate dementia of all types is recommended by NICE and is now in widespread use across the UK and the rest of the world in a variety of settings including care homes, hospitals and the community. A recent audit by the Memory Services National Accreditation Programme reported that 66% of UK memory clinics surveyed were using CST.
The aim of the Ibarra Real Project was to fashion a distinctive Spanish font for use in contemporary print and digital media in order to create a twenty-first century typographic identity that was firmly rooted in Spanish culture. The project focused on the revival and re-establishing of the iconic eighteenth-century Ibarra Real typeface, and research by Sánchez Espinosa in the UoA provided the historical and cultural underpinning that validates the claim of the font to be characteristically Spanish. The project has had a clear impact on Spanish graphic and book design and has added a distinctive Hispanic typeface to Microsoft's suite of fonts. It has contributed to the promotion of cultural diversity in the context of global media dominated by the English language and Anglo-American visual culture.
Teaching and learning of computer architecture has been enhanced using highly interactive simulations with carefully constructed visualisations and animations. Computer scientists need to understand and observe how different parts of a modern computer system's architecture and organization fit together, interact and support each other. Unique educational simulation software has been designed, developed and evaluated with these requirements in mind. Since the software and teaching materials have been made public, numerous universities worldwide adopted it in their courses with claimed positive impact on student engagement, course popularity, grades, speed of delivery of curriculum, attendance and peer recognition of best practice.