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Research carried out at King's College London (KCL) showed that percentage carbohydrate deficient transferrin (%CDT) can be used as a means to monitor continuous drinking in high-risk offenders. The accurate screening of such drivers helps reduce the number of unsafe drivers on British roads. KCL work has resulted in a change to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's (DVLA) national policy for assessing drink drivers. Percentage CDT has been approved as the sole biomarker for the purpose of re-licensing high-risk drink drivers. This enables faster release of a licence to an abstinent high-risk offender; provides a better basis for the refusal of release in other cases and provides a more reliable control and therefore, a more practicable service, especially for periodic re-granting of licences for special (buses, heavy trucks) drivers.
Research on the copper industry by Swansea historians has acted as a catalyst for the regeneration of the former Hafod-Morfa copperworks site in the Lower Swansea Valley. Until recently the abandoned site was associated only with industrial dereliction, but historical research on entrepreneurship, innovation and global trade has galvanised a new public appreciation of its international significance. Since 2010, an extensive programme of public engagement activities has persuaded key partners in local government to adopt an ambitious plan to preserve and present its cultural heritage. The project received national acclaim in Research Council UK's 2011 report on `Big Ideas for the Future', which noted that `The example set by the research in Swansea could be used across the UK' (C1).
Professor Rima's research on measles and mumps viruses over 4 decades at Queen's University allowed him to play an important role in re-establishing public confidence in the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. Claims that MMR vaccine could cause autism in 1998 undermined the vaccine uptake but Rima's expert testimony and that of others established in court that these claims were unfounded. This re-assurance and subsequent promotion of MMR vaccination reduced measles cases in the UK. In the USA, it also reduced the real risk that the Vaccine Court Fund, which compensates vaccinees for genuine vaccine related adverse events, would be bankrupted by over 50,000 claims amounting to between $30-50 Billion.
Research at Swansea University on light therapy has contributed to an extensive market in laser and intense pulsed light (IPL) products for the therapeutic and cosmetic treatment of skin conditions. Impacts include: globally registered intellectual property; local manufacturing of a wide range of laser and IPL products; their distribution to over 40 countries; and resulting benefits to health in treating acne, rejuvenating skin and removing hair. The research undertaken by Swansea University and its companies pioneered this market in partnership with Procter & Gamble and Unilever; and established a joint venture with Sony UK to manufacture these laser and IPL products in South Wales. The Welsh government views this collaboration as an exemplar for the resurgence of UK specialist manufacturing.
The Hafan Books project publishes creative writing by asylum-seekers and refugees [henceforth simply: `refugees'] in South Wales. The project promotes a civic culture of hospitality, compassion and respect through the publications, large-scale festive launch events, and further creative outputs. Beneficiaries include contributors and other refugees, charity workers and volunteers, and arts organisations. The publications are widely used in professional refugee awareness training. The project has been recognised as exemplary for refugee awareness and integration though the arts and has been emulated in the UK and overseas.
Research on residential care- and extracare-supported housing conducted by Swansea's Centre for Innovative Ageing (CIA) has impacted on the development and reconfiguration of supported housing services in Wales. Our research on care home closures has directly led to Welsh Government (WG) consultation on guidance regarding `escalating concerns' for care home closures, and the Independent Advisory Group on Local Authority Closure of Care Homes has recommended that our amendments to escalating concerns should be adopted in relation to care home closures due to strategic/policy reasons. Work is now underway by the WG to publish revised guidance in relation to care home closures based on our research. Three local authorities (Swansea, Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexham) have used our research on the challenges associated with extracare provision to inform the development of future services.
The societal, economic and health benefits of breastfeeding include reduced infections in infants, cancers in mothers, cardiovascular disorders in both, and costs to the NHS (UNICEF UK 2012). Breastfeeding initiation rates in England improved from 66.2% in 2005/6 to 73.7% in 2010/11. Swansea work improved services, health and welfare because we:
We recommended that doses of analgesia be minimised and mothers receiving multiple medicines in labour targeted for additional breastfeeding support (R1-3). These recommendations reached most midwives and students in the English-speaking world through NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), Intrapartum Care Guideline 2007 (C1 p.123) and our textbooks (R4, 5). NICE guidelines form the basis of hospital policies and procedures in the UK and beyond. Doses were lowered (details below) and breastfeeding rates improved.
Between 1996 and 2011, Swansea staff published a series of papers into effects of logging practices, land-use change and recent climatic change on rainforest erosion, hydrology and ecology in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). This research has led to improved logging practices and land management policy and enhanced the spatial extent, design and security of rainforest conservation in the region — for example, in 2012-13, the Sabah Government more than doubled the area of legally protected rainforest to form an east-west (E-W) contiguous 5000 km2 rainforest area in eastern Sabah. This zone will be more robust in its responses to climatic change and less prone to wildfires than if the forest had been fragmented. This is of global conservational significance because the zone contains the largest remaining area of primary lowland rainforest (and orang-utan habitat) in SE Asia. The impact of our research was achieved through direct, long- term links between Swansea staff and local forest management and governmental bodies.
Wildfires can reduce the wettability of soil (i.e. increase their water repellency), accelerating runoff and erosion that in turn can cause flooding, landslides and aquifer contamination. Our research has revealed a link between fire severity and soil wettability that has led to substantial changes in the policy for mandatory post-fire assessments by the United States Forest Service (USFS). Implemented in 2011, these changes have resulted in improved land-rehabilitation practice in the USA. Moreover, this practice is being increasingly applied elsewhere, including Canada, Australia and parts of Europe, all of which now include specific consideration of soil wettability following severe fires and are underpinned by the methodology we developed. Based on these assessments, landscape-rehabilitation is applied at high-risk areas following wildfires, to limit the threats to life, property, infrastructure and ecosystem quality arising from excessive runoff and erosion. In the USA, for example, ~1.3 million hectares of burned land have been assessed in 2012 using the new post-fire assessment guidelines.
Our research has had a significant impact on economic policy formation. This impact is best exemplified by looking at two examples:
1) Safeguarding 10,000 jobs in Wales: providing the evidence base for the introduction of the ProAct.
2) Providing critical evidence to the debate initiated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2011 for more market facing pay for over 6 million public sector employees, which was subsequently abandoned in 2012 in part based as a consequence of our research findings.
The underlying research on regional and labour economics spans over two decades, involving the creation, since 2002, of 3 research centres (£2.4m to Swansea) which, through 50 reports, have impacted directly on policy.