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This case study highlights the pioneering research of Arran Stibbe in the emerging disciple of Ecological Linguistics, and the impact of this research beyond academia in developing Education for Sustainability in English disciplines and beyond. Environmental issues have traditionally been considered a matter more for the sciences than the humanities. However, Dr Stibbe's detailed linguistic analyses of environmental discourses, his many keynote presentations and newsletter articles for the Higher Education Academy, and the seminal Handbook of Sustainability Literacy have demonstrated how linguistics can address environmental issues, and informed the curricula of multiple institutions across the world, as evidenced by testimonials and the findings of independent research.
Lincoln's research treats historical, literary, theological and hermeneutical issues in New Testament studies. Aiming to be accessible in its presentation, it has an impact throughout the English-speaking world on leaders in churches, teachers and sixth formers in schools and a broad audience interested in the interpretation of the Bible. In particular, it has contributed to bridging the gap between academic biblical studies and popular understanding in the church and society, as readers turn to his work on New Testament texts and issues to find ways to integrate the challenges of critical reading with an appreciation of the contemporary significance of the Bible for theological thinking and the religious imagination.
This case study focuses on the impact of work underpinned by Professor Hart's entomological research and includes the major BBC and Discovery/Science Channel documentary, Planet Ant: Life inside the Colony, a children's version, Living on Planet Ant (both presented by Hart) and subsequent secondary impact through two Citizen Science projects. Together these projects have considerably raised public awareness and understanding of ants and their importance. Planet Ant has reached a domestic audience in excess of one million via TV, a large international TV audience, more than 0.6 million via YouTube and was widely and positively reviewed in the national press.
Activities arising from the programme included a debate session on the importance of ants at the Cheltenham Science Festival, 10 weeks of public viewing and guide-led interpretation of the ant colony at the Glasgow Science Centre and national and international magazine articles. Planet Ant led to Hart's central involvement with two large citizen science projects run jointly between him and the UK's Society of Biology. Widely featured in the national press and radio, these have actively engaged more than 20,000 members of the public in primary scientific research, including some 3,500 "super engagers" who have sent on more detailed records and samples. Indeed, one of these projects has been selected by the RCUK for their Concordat anniversary publication as a case study to demonstrate the impact of public engagement.
Dr Anne Goodenough and Professor Frank Chambers undertake applied ecological research with importance for conservation and management, nationally and internationally. Working with, or commissioned by, major national bodies including The Heather Trust, Natural England, Countryside Council for Wales, British Trust for Ornithology and RSPB, their research on rare species and habitats influences major national policy (e.g. species conservation priorities, and degraded habitat restoration and conservation). Furthermore, their research informs evidence-based changes in management for species (leading to conservation of internationally declining songbird, the pied flycatcher, at key sites throughout the UK) and landscapes (blanket bog and heather moorland restoration in Wales and England).
The CCRI's extensive programme of funded research (for the EU, UK government, research councils, private and the voluntary sectors) into local and sustainable food has impacted at both national and local levels. Nationally, it has led directly to changes in fishing regulations (Defra), adjustments to ministerial roles (DCLG), changes in the implementation of the Big Lottery's Local Food programme and the successful development of traditional food markets. Locally, food strategies and marketing strategies for local food have been developed and community food growing has been implemented on the ground. National television and radio coverage have ensured wide dissemination.
The Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) has undertaken research providing a sustained contribution to understanding beneficiary-focused EU and UK rural development (RD) policies. This used novel, context-sensitive and mixed-method evaluation techniques to capture complex, systemic impacts and diagnose causal linkages between design and delivery, and policy performance. In so doing it has generated direct impacts in improved RD policy making and evaluation. The research has influenced restructuring in EU policy frameworks for RD and changed England's upland policy. By increasing policymakers' understanding of farm-level behaviours and responses to agri-environmental policy goals, CCRI's research has stimulated better-communicated and integrated advisory approaches.
The origins of this category and critical concept lie in Dr Robertson's interest in the way local communities have sought to put the past to use in the present. A strong interest in public histories in the Scottish Highlands, both individual and communal, has brought significant opportunities for collaboration with, and dissemination to, local history organisations and other community groups. Further impact includes: the curating of an art exhibition; engaging with practitioners to explore the ways in which memories of flooding can be utilised in future resilience; contributions to debates on land and identity in the Scottish Highlands.
Professor Raphael's research into the theological meaning of women's experience during the Holocaust, the Jewishness of Jewish Art and idol-breaking as a key tool in the criticism of contemporary culture has had religious, cultural, political and educational impact outside the Higher Education academy. Her work has helped three constituencies to make theological or spiritual sense of the Holocaust, to understand the political connections between gender and genocide and to appreciate the theological relationship of modern Jewish art to the tradition. These constituencies are:
i. the general public;
ii. Jews and Christians on ordination training courses where religious art and modern Jewish thought are studied;
iii. Sixth-form pupils studying the problem of evil.
The impact of Professor Nigel McLoughlin's work has two main, interrelated facets. The first is the public dissemination of his poetry through a variety of media, including mass media. His work takes the Irish troubles as a main context, and addresses themes of violence, invasion, identity, belonging, and tradition. He has published widely and has been invited to perform his work to public audiences at numerous literary festivals. The second is his academic research into pedagogy and poetics. Here his academic work examines the creative process and principles of making poems and his research reflects how one can explore and teach the various textual, musical, rhythmic, formal and thematic considerations of poetry. His own poetry bears out this reflective relation to expressivity through its perpetual experiments with formal and musical considerations, imagery and the relationship of the poetic whole to multi-sensory images and embodied thought.
Research undertaken by Professor Diane Crone, Professor David James and co-researchers has investigated the use of physical activity and art promotion interventions in health care, as an adjunct to treatment, to improve patient health and wellbeing. The research has had policy, practice and patient benefit. The specific areas upon which it has impacted are:
(i) Guidelines and practice for intervention development;
(ii) Professional development of health and physical activity professionals in the UK and throughout Europe;
(iii) Public and patient health and wellbeing improvements.