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Thousands of animals are housed in captive conditions worldwide, often to the detriment of their mental well-being. Scientists at Queen's Animal Behaviour Centre have spent the last 20 years developing new ways of improving the psychological welfare of animals housed in captivity. Their research has shown that classical music and scents such as lavender in dog shelters calms the animals, and that shielding zoo-housed gorillas from visitors with camouflage netting over the viewing windows, prevents great apes from becoming agitated. The impact of this research extends to guidelines and regulations set by the American Veterinary Medical Association, the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Council. Commercial impact includes CDs of music composed specifically for dogs, now widely available to buy on the open market, and being utilised in 1700+ rescue shelters and by over 150,000 pet owners around the globe.
Our research has transformed UK and international thinking, policy and practice in sport coaching. The result is an emerging international consensus on sport coaching as a blended profession encompassing a segmented workforce with defined coaching roles. We have had a significant impact on UK and international sport coaching systems, coach development, education and qualifications. Our research work has impacted on more than 30 countries, and directly on the work of at least 26 international agencies and sporting bodies, directly enhancing the lived experiences of many thousands of coaches, participants and performers.
This case generated new ways of thinking among a self-selecting sample of `senior' PR practitioners and delivered personal autonomy and professional development. The term `senior' is commonly employed in PR practice and formed the basis for discussion on practitioner conceptualisation of professional expertise. Critical interventions extracted practitioner accounts of their work, methodologies and impacts, and changes in critical, conceptual thinking took place. The project created an awareness of subjectivity in everyday practice among a collective category of workers with regard to their information and knowledge expertise, with implications for the practice community and wider society.