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This research has had transformational impacts: systematically providing evidence of the state of cultural heritage policies concerning nine countries in South East Europe; identifying the need for management tools to integrate inventories, environmental and spatial planning, heritage protection and funding mechanisms for projects to enable sustainable use of heritage resources; helping shape a Council of Europe regional programme; creating the framework for legal/administration reform requests by the states concerned; and has led to technical assistance actions, jointly funded by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, including monitoring to ensure the institutionalisation of methodologies in national policies and strategies.
Kyriakidis's research has had impact on policy-makers within both national and local government. This has involved a scaling up of his impact activities that were based in Gonies (Crete) to include both national policy-makers and international organisations. As a result, he has become an influential international authority on the development of greater public engagement with heritage sites (including Pompeii), and on public policy in Greece. His research has resulted in a shift in policy at the Athens University of Economics and Business, which now engages with the provision of training in Heritage Management and is branching out from exclusively finance-based education. His CPD (Continuing Professional Development) courses have reached out to the commercial sector (particularly Leica).
Simon Goldhill's research on the history and archaeology of Jerusalem led to his being asked to join the EU-funded programme Promoting Understanding of Shared Heritage (PUSH). The aim of the project is to develop a new policy on sites of shared cultural heritage, in which capacity Goldhill has met regularly with — and been able to influence — Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian policy-makers. This influence is manifested in a rapprochement between groups who had previously been unable to meet; new signage at significant sites across Israel/Palestine and Jordan; and continuing interaction particularly on the crucial area of the management of natural resources.
Dr Watson's research is concerned with the understanding of heritage as a cultural phenomenon and the ways in which this is represented in tourism and in public engagement. The research has focussed on a re-theorisation of issues such as visuality and representation in the public sphere of cultural and heritage tourism and the ways in which this is implicated in modalities of marketing, destination development and the community management of cultural heritage resources. He has sought opportunities to apply this thinking in the real experience of tourism management and marketing in the City of York, one of the world's foremost heritage tourism destinations.
Pioneering research, from 1995, at the Advanced Concrete and Masonry Centre into the mechanical and compositional properties of traditional mortars and roofing slate improved applied analysis and material sourcing in relation to the conservation of historic buildings. Authoritative guidance on the analysis of historic mortars and the specification of their replacements, based on UWS research, had an international impact, seeing incorporation into ASTM and CEN standards, and contributed to the development of a commercial Hydraulic Lime. A research network on climate change impacts in the historic environment influenced Historic Scotland policy for sustainability and materials research.
This research in Libya has had several significant impacts with wide reach for a range of different groups, both national and international. It has made fundamental contributions to the archaeological mapping of Libya (a country of extraordinary archaeological richness but still poorly recorded), to the development of typologies of sites and artefacts, and to dating frameworks. This has delivered major related impacts for management of cultural heritage by the Libyan Department of Antiquities (DoA), and for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and archaeological mitigation work by oil companies in the Libyan desert. There have been additional benefits through dissemination of new historical models, as well as protection of heritage sites during the 2011 conflict.
Since 2005 Professor Peter Stone's research has explored what we tolerate as acceptable, and crucially, what we view as unacceptable, practice during armed conflict in relation to the protection of cultural property. It has investigated, within the context of jus in bello [the morality of what is done during war], the way in which we wage war and, by implication, the very nature of war itself. This research has impacted on: NGOs; national policy makers (including the HM Government); and the international military:
2The European funded ISAAC Project aimed to enhance the relationship between heritage and tourism in urban destinations through a novel Information Communication Technology (ICT) environment. The platform provided integrated and user-friendly tourism e-services facilitating an advanced access to European cultural heritage assets. Within this project the Sunderland team worked with a wide community of stakeholders to identify intangible aspects and stories worthwhile to be told within a destination. These stories were integrated in an interpretative strategy independent of, but aligned with destinations' current marketing and positioning strategies. The specific impact focuses on three destinations, Leipzig, Amsterdam and Genoa.
The Peoples-based Conservation Project (PBC) has challenged conventional heritage conservation practice by privileging a community's cultural systems over universalised concepts of heritage, through participatory practice. This transformed conservation practice by transferring the focus from material preservation to developing and preserving the connections between people, their cultural heritage, and each other. This new approach has developed a shared responsibility between the National Trust and Maori in the UK and New Zealand for the care of Hinemihi, an historic Maori meeting house which is no longer conserved as an object of built heritage, but as the living focus of a network of reciprocal social relationships.
The `Impacts 08' research programme was inherently, in and of itself, designed to impact upon policy-makers and practitioners by documenting the process of hosting major cultural events and providing robust evidence of their social, economic and cultural impact. Between 2006 and 2010 regular and easily accessible research based reports were shared with stakeholders and the public. The impact of the work is evidenced in the development of local, UK and EU policy on cultural regeneration and events. These policy developments have addressed approaches to funding, promoting and assessing the value of cultural events.