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Labour Left, the Labour Party Think Tank, is a grassroots organisation developing new public discourses that aim to move Labour towards an ethical socialist position. Professor Beverley Clack works with Labour Left to provide intellectual support for developing Labour Party policy. Her research, which focuses on a common wellbeing, has been used to inform debate in the party around notions of ethical socialism as the basis for policy. She has contributed to public events, including two fringe events at the Labour Party Conferences of 2011 and 2012, collaborated with Mags Waterhouse in producing a blog for the Huffington Post, and contributed a chapter to The Red Book on the theme of ethical socialism.
For about a decade, Professor Nick Bostrom and others have been pursuing research on what he calls `existential risk': this research deals with basic threats both to the quality of our future life and indeed to our having any future life at all. This work has had considerable impact on policy. Professor Bostrom has been invited to play a large number of advisory and consultation roles, to government departments and major insurance companies among many others. His work has also attracted a huge amount of attention among the wider public. He has been invited to give prestigious public lectures, and he has given many interviews on his ideas to the media - thereby contributing to the public awareness of the huge risks at stake.
Eyal Weizman's decade-long programme of research into the relation between architecture and conflict has been formative to the establishment of the new field of "Forensic Architecture". His research-based books have been the basis for his production of influential human rights reports, several of which have been presented as evidence in international trials and/or have informed policies relating to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Appointed as the director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths in 2005, in 2011 he was awarded ERC funding of €1.2M for a project [Forensic Architecture] on the place of architecture in international humanitarian law: this has generated spatial evidence crucial to legal issues concerning the conflicts in areas of the world including Palestine, Guatemala, Pakistan and the Yemen. His extensive collaboration with international human rights organisations and the UN have meant that his work has achieved very wide reach. His work reached multiple audiences through numerous public lectures and media presentations as well as extensive exhibitions in leading cultural and architectural institutions worldwide.
Research on sustainability in this unit is helping to extend the lifetime of clothing and other consumer products (durables/ semi-durables) by informing government policy and influencing manufacturers to reduce waste and over-consumption. Our findings on key policy instruments have fed into new government guidelines, prepared in the context of EU legislation, on the potential to reduce waste by increasing product lifetimes. Our clothing sector research has been disseminated to policymakers and industry stakeholders through studies on public understanding of sustainable clothing, clothing behaviour and designing clothes for longevity. Together they have culminated in a Government-funded initiative to create an industry-supported Clothing Longevity Protocol.
Timothy Gorringe's research examines issues in urban planning and transition towns from a theological and ethical perspective. It places moral, spiritual and aesthetic values alongside economic and physical considerations at the heart of the planning process, and provides analyses of movements seeking environmental and social change. Gorringe has presented and discussed his research in policy-shaping fora, and as part of interactions with churches, charities and campaigning groups including the Transition Network, who form the main beneficiaries of his work. His research has had international impact beyond the HE academy, influencing the work of urban planners and shaping public education about the urban environment, especially in regard to ethical, spiritual and environmental considerations.