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Multidisciplinary research by the University of Southampton has been pivotal to tackling the problem of Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome, HAVS, a major compensated industrial disease with more than 1.2 million workers at foreseeable risk in the UK and many millions with symptoms around the globe. Work by the Human Factors Research Unit, part of the University's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, has had a major impact on understanding and controlling the disorder, shaping guidance that is used in national and international standards, governmental legislation, law courts and compensation schemes both nationally and internationally. The advances arising from the Southampton research are recognised by policymakers, industry, and peer groups.
This case study focuses on the impact of the research of one member of the UCL English Department, John Mullan. It describes the impact of his introduction of techniques of narrative analysis to the general reader and to secondary school teachers and students. This has involved making accessible to the general public an informed historical understanding of the development of English fiction, communicating techniques of critical reading that assist the appreciation of both canonical and contemporary novels. This has meant acting as a bridge between contemporary writers and readers, and communicating via print, radio and television the history of the genre. It has also meant delivering the benefits of a specialised critical vocabulary to teachers teaching fiction at secondary school level.
Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) affect more than 4% of British men aged 65-74 and are responsible for over 6,800 deaths annually. The MASS trial showed that screening could reduce AAA-related mortality by 42%, and the Health Economics Research Group (HERG) demonstrated, through the MASS trial, that AAA screening was cost-effective. HERG thus helped inform the policy announced by UK ministers in 2008 to introduce a national screening programme for all men reaching 65. By Spring 2013 it was fully introduced in England — offering screening to 300,000 men annually; the latest Annual Report (2011-12) claimed an uptake rate of 75%. In 2008 the DH estimated the health gain from a screening programme would be at least 130,000 QALYS over 20 years. Internationally, MASS is the most significant trial of AAA screening, and provides the most robust evidence-based model of its cost-effectiveness. It extensively influenced AAA screening guidelines, policies and services, including in the USA and Europe.
Moving Memories was a participatory research project which used BBC North West and other archive film footage to re-connect people of Caribbean, Sikh and Irish heritage in Moss Side and Hulme with the visual record of their settlement in Manchester from the 1950s to the 1980s. Local people enriched these visual histories with personal memories, interpreting, reflecting, linking across generations, and generating pride in their community's contribution to Manchester's broader historical narrative. The project is a model of exemplary practice for the applied use of archive material in BME contexts, demonstrating how shared story-telling challenges stereotypes of inner- city, multi-ethnic neighbourhoods and improves community cohesion.
The first major international touring exhibition on the region, Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley, attracted up to a third of a million visitors between opening at UCLA's Fowler Museum in February 2011 and closing at the Musée du quai Branly, Paris, in January 2013, with intervening shows at Stanford University's Cantor Center and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art. The exhibition, its 600-page catalogue, and extensive education and outreach programmes, substantially based on Professor Richard Fardon's research insights, were widely reviewed as a revelatory experience providing the public with a first comprehensive overview of the hitherto poorly understood arts of central Nigeria.
A novel technique named Selected Ion Flow Tube-Mass Spectrometry, SIFT-MS, has been researched and developed by Professor David Smith and Professor Patrik Spanel at the Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine (ISTM), Keele University. This technique allows real time, on-line analysis of trace gases in air and exhaled breath. This development stems from basic research into the reactivity of ions in the gas phase, in which Smith & Spanel are recognised international experts, combined with a complete understanding of the engineering and technical requirements of successful analytical instrumentation. SIFT-MS instruments have been developed initially from large laboratory devices to the current, transportable commercial instruments that are produced by two independent manufacturers and sold worldwide. They are used in various fields of research, including immediate analysis of exhaled breath and urine headspace for clinical diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring, cell biology, and in environmental and food sciences. They have important practical use in the safety of customs workers in container ports and in prospecting for oil and gas. SIFT-MS instruments manufactured in the UK have been exported to Austria, Czech Republic, China and the USA.