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This case study focuses on the impact of research carried out at the University of Cambridge into the history of evolution by Professor James Secord and co-workers, notably the impact of two research programmes: the Darwin Correspondence Project and Darwin Online. These projects have contributed to a substantial reorientation of public discourse on the history of evolution. The impact has been achieved through web resources; museum and library exhibitions; teaching materials for schools and universities; and radio and television programmes. These outputs have encouraged public understanding of the range of contributors to science, including women; an awareness of the diversity of positions in the evolutionary debate; and an appreciation of the complex relations between evolutionary science and faith. The projects have shown that the highest achievements of scholarship can be made freely accessible to a global audience.
Rebecca Stott's research into evolutionary theory (2001-7) has informed public knowledge of the history and philosophy of science. Both her fiction and her creative non-fiction make comparatively unfamiliar aspects of early evolutionary theory accessible to the general reader, and have thus enhanced understanding of science as well as scientists' understanding of culture. Stott founded a tradition of exploring science-literature intersections within our department which has been carried forward by our creative writers Katy Price and Laura Dietz.
The present case study describes the considerable influence over time of a core team of creative writers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the practice of creative writing as a discipline, both within the academy and beyond, and on the landscape of contemporary literature, the novel in particular. Our practice-based research and pedagogy represents a considerable contribution to economic prosperity in the publishing industries. UEA creative writing has local, national and international cultural impact through its partnership with the Writers Centre, Norwich and its extensive presence in the media, and through links with workshops in India, Australia and America. The transformative influence of UEA on the character of creative writing was recognized in 2012 with the award of the Queen's Anniversary Prize.
This study addresses the impact of researchers in the Writing and Environment Research Centre who have pioneered the `environmental humanities', contributing to public debate in a field of acknowledged political and cultural importance. Neale's work has been used by trade unions in the UK and overseas. Garrard's book is used in HEIs in the UK and abroad. Evans reaches public audiences with his BBC radio work and Guardian column; Kerridge with literary nature writing. Kerridge and Garrard have influenced the teaching of ecocriticism in numerous universities. Collectively, the centre contributes to public awareness of the cultural aspects of environmental questions.
Nick Hopwood's Embryos in Wax (2002) has impacted on museum practice by enabling curators of many local and national collections to catalogue the most important embryological models and display them informatively in permanent and major temporary exhibitions. Especially the online exhibition Making Visible Embryos (2008) and a 2006 article in Isis have greatly stimulated discussion and use of historic embryo images, providing evidence and interpretation to debates over abortion, developmental biology, evolution and creationism. The research has impacted on undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at other HEIs by opening up new topics and enabling new kinds of collections-based project and class.
Research into the history of the emotions undertaken by members of the QMUL Centre for the History of the Emotions has made possible a series of impacts of local, national and international reach and significance, on public understanding of emotions, on contemporary art and culture, and on political debates about public policy, emotions and wellbeing. Impacts have been achieved through a range of activities, including practical interventions in schools, input into radio and television broadcasts, an artist in residence scheme, an international email list and blog, and policy discussions with think tanks such as the Young Foundation.
Professor Rainer Schulze's research on the history of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp provided a new analysis of the singular role of Bergen-Belsen in the system of Nazi concentration camps. This research informed a new permanent exhibition at the Gedenkstätte (memorial site) at Bergen-Belsen. The new exhibition has educated hundreds of thousands of visitors since it opened in 2007, and has improved the reputation of the Gedenkstätte, allowing it to secure a donation from the Berlin Bundesregierung of €1million and to incr ease its permanent staff number. In the UK, Schulze's work has had effects on the teaching of Holocaust history in the UK, achieved through his participation in the annual University of Essex Holocaust Awareness week, his Key Stage 3 and 4 and A-Level workshops, and the establishment of the Dora Love Prize for schools in 2012.
In March 2013, the British Library (BL) launched the first national oral-history archive of the British Women's Liberation Movement (WLM). A permanent public resource preserving the voices of 1970s/1980s feminists, the archive was the outcome of 'Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project', a three-year Leverhulme-funded research-partnership project led by PI Margaretta Jolly, in partnership with curators at the BL and the Women's Library (WL). Through the national prominence this archive has achieved and the numerous curatorial, educational, cultural and community activities directly associated with it, the research is having a significant impact on the public perception of feminism, bringing it to life for new audiences.
Research at UCL spread public understanding of mafias around the world, contributed to the professional preparation and development of law enforcement officers and investigating magistrates engaged in front-line work against the mafias, provided historical evidence supporting magistrates in Reggio Calabria seeking to create a legal precedent for the successful prosecution of the `ndrangheta under anti-mafia laws. It contributed to the memorialisation of victims of mafia violence in Sicily, aided the work of the anti-protection racket organisation Addiopizzo by influencing its staff and alerting visitors to Sicily to the importance of critical consumption in order to avoid involuntarily funding the mafia.