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World-leading primate research by the `Origins of Mind' group led to the creation of the University's £1.6M `Living Links to Human Evolution' Research Centre, intentionally located in Edinburgh Zoo where it has pioneered unique public engagement and science education using a range of materials and activities. The research has thus impacted on: i) society and culture: since 2008, around 250,000 visitors per year have engaged with live, on-going science and multiple associated legacy resources and activities; ii) educational practitioners and school children, through classes in the Centre and internet teacher packs that integrate with Scottish Highers; and iii) commercial income to the Zoo.
The decline of bees, hoverflies, and other pollinators has been widely described as a "pollination crisis" (e.g. Progress Report of FAO on the Implementation of the International Pollinators Initiative - September 2012) which could have profound effects on both food security, and wild plant populations and the ecosystem services they support. Research by Professor Jeff Ollerton and colleagues into the ecology and diversity of plant-pollinator interactions has: (a) provided a scientific evidence base that has influenced national and international policies relating to the conservation of pollinator populations; (b) raised national and international public awareness of the subject of pollinator conservation; and (c) led to positive changes in UK gardening practices.
Based on innovative technology invented and developed through research at the University of Southampton, sustainable pest control products by spinout company Exosect are being employed around the world to preserve the global food supply. Since 2008 its bio-control products have been newly adopted in diverse situations: by Sainsbury's in response to consumer pressure to reduce chemicals in food; by Bayer CropScience, who bought rights, in a multimillion pound deal, to a product for the protection of bee populations; by English Heritage to preserve the UK's cultural heritage. The technology has inspired a US$1m Gates Foundation grant for poverty reduction efforts in sub-Saharan Africa and raised awareness among conventional pesticide manufacturers of the environmental and economic benefits of bio-control solutions.
The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx) at Nottingham is a world leader in the development and application of experimental and behavioural economics. CeDEx's research is increasingly influential in affecting the way in which experimental methodology is utilised by public sector agencies (e.g. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, DEFRA) and in fashioning the public and policy makers' understanding of how human motivations and decision processes affect individual and group behaviour and, in particular, their responses to different policy tools (e.g. incentives, regulation, information, `nudges' etc). The research of the CeDEx group has had broad and diffuse impacts on public decision-making and public debate; through public events, the provision of advice to government departments and regulators, the delivery of training workshops, commissioned research and an active strategy of engagement in public debate.