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This case study describes creative educational work carried out by Dr Abigail Williams in collaboration with professional musicians to bring alive the details of 18th century popular culture found in poetic and musical miscellanies. Williams selected from the c.1400 surviving miscellanies to create site specific performances in UK historic and museum venues. She has worked with museums, schools and radio to develop curatorial resources for presenting book-based cultural-historical evidence not easily appreciated via the standard museum or library display of written texts. Her research data also brought knowledge exchange benefits to a Canada-based computer technology business.
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.
The Henry III Fine Rolls Project has reshaped understanding of the period between Magna Carta and the birth of the parliamentary state by preserving, conserving and presenting cultural heritage, and influencing the ideas of the profession. The Project has created a free, online English translation of the medieval Latin fine rolls of Henry III, housed in the National Archives (http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/index.html), bringing a vast body of previously unpublished primary material into the public domain that is now used extensively by archivists, genealogists, local historians, heritage organisations, teachers and researchers worldwide, who are interested in the history of thirteenth-century England. Thousands of new users for this resource have been engaged via the website.
Attwell and Attridge's paradigm-shifting research on the culturally and linguistically diverse literary history of South Africa has had a significant influence on the country's reassessment of its cultural past, present and future. In a national situation in which literature has always been embedded in political life, apartheid divisions left different racial and linguistic groups out of touch with each other's literary heritage. Attridge and Attwell undertook to bridge these differences by producing the first comprehensive history of literature across all languages and in all periods, widely seen as a major step forward in national cross-cultural awareness. The key beneficiaries are a range of political, cultural, media and educational institutions, and the people served by them, in South Africa and across the world.
The University of Huddersfield's performance-led research into the consort of viols and its relationship to the voice has resulted in familiar repertory being heard in new ways and the performance of music largely unknown to modern audiences. This work has earned international recognition through public performances, lecture-recitals, commercial CDs and radio broadcasts, influencing instrument makers, performers, concert promoters and audiences. Its importance is further evidenced by a close association with the National Centre for Early Music, advising on and leading events and the award of a £268,000 AHRC grant for the project The Making of the Tudor Viol.
This case study describes the impact of 15 years of research on the health and well-being of people with severe and complex disabilities. Through collaboration with education and disability services, research-based guidance has been developed on communication intervention and safe eating and drinking, informing:
Outputs are also cited in many education, health and social care internet advice sources (see sections 4 and 5).
The project is inspired by an impact agenda, its aim being to benefit many constituencies by making its research freely available on its website. The research is making a major contribution to public understanding of Magna Carta and helping to shape the agenda for the celebrations of its 800th anniversary in 2015. The resource encourages active involvement in history by many beneficiaries — local communities, family historians, the heritage industry, university students, and schools (where the reform of the history curricula re-emphasies this period of history) — allowing them to connect with their past in meaningful and hitherto impossible ways.
Our theoretical and empirical work in the area of normal childbirth and associated cultural and contextual issues has been cited in two NICE guidelines, in professional body standards, and national consumer group websites (AIMS, NCT, BirthChoiceUK). One study provided the catalyst for the UK's Normal Birth Campaign (http://www.rcmnormalbirth.org.uk/ and international successors, and influenced the definition of normal birth in UK National Statistics. The programme has generated: significant media coverage; an EU funded network including 26 countries that is influencing the international normal birth debate; recognition as international change agents in this area (http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/emnwpaper/023.htm, leading to the award of an OBE.