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This case study focuses on the construct of mind-mindedness: parents' or carers' ability to `tune in' to what their young children are thinking or feeling. Durham-based research highlighted how parental mind-mindedness is associated with a range of positive child and family outcomes, and has had impact via two main routes: (a) advice and support offered to parents (10,000 copies of the NSPCC's All Babies Count booklet and associated social media sites reaching 800,000 parents), and (b) interventions targeted to improve outcome in parents and families experiencing difficulties.
By describing the exceptional biodiversity of the Wakatobi Marine National Park (WMNP), Essex research underpinned the Park's nomination for World Heritage Status, and its designation as a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve in 2012. MAB designation was due to our development of a participatory research programme that has taken approximately 5600 international research tourists to the WMNP since 2002. This sustainable research model has contributed to the economic development of the region through the employment of more than 100 local staff per year, injecting over £1M into the local economy. This has also led to increased turnover for our UK partner, Operation Wallacea, from £250k to over £3M per annum (2002-11).
Two books and review/research articles in Italian have disseminated the findings from the underpinning research on creating false autobiographical memories and the dangers of inadequate interviewing techniques. This work has critically increased awareness in the Italian legal system amongst both barristers and judges, to the point of shaping the practice of interviewing witnesses in that country. It has also informed all verdicts on child sexual abuse by the Supreme Court of Cassation.
This case study describes how Prof Cecilia Essau's research into emotional and behavioural problems in children and adolescents has been of benefit to children and has helped parents and schools to provide them with better support. Essau has worked with a children's charity to use her externally funded research to contribute to public understanding through providing presentations and skills training and to underpin the development and implementation of an anxiety prevention programme, Super Skills for Life (SSL), which has had a demonstrable benefit on children's wellbeing. In addition, Essau's research has been of value in informing the development of DSM-5, in introducing a specifier to the diagnosis of conduct disorder using callous-unemotional traits, and in refining the diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder. It has also contributed to policies and interventions internationally.
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.
This impact case study is discussed in terms of six years of research collaboration with relevant bodies in India and China through EU-funded projects encouraging the development of a usability culture in academic and industrial sectors. Impact in this case can be seen at three levels:
A research programme of randomised controlled trials undertaken at the University of Southampton demonstrating the efficacy of the New Forest Parenting Programme (NFPP) played a crucial role in: (i) influencing the developers of clinical guidelines to recommend parent training in general as a core part of the treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and (ii) establishing the NFPP, in particular, as a widely employed evidence-based treatment for ADHD, a condition estimated to affect up to 400,000 children in the UK alone. As a direct result of the trials, the programme, a novel therapeutic intervention that teaches parents of preschool children with ADHD how to modify their children's behaviour and improve their self-regulation, has been included in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and other clinical guidelines and recommended internationally as an effective alternative to medication, which often brings only short-term benefits and is associated with a range of potentially debilitating side-effects.
The Fault Dynamics Research Group (FDRG) have designed and executed analogue experiments to replicate the 3D/4D geometry of oil and gas exploration targets. The main beneficiaries are the international petroleum industry. The research is "pivotal to British Petroleum's subsurface developments" (R. Humphries BP 2012) in determining the number of multi-million pound wells required to access reserves. FDRG models "changed the way seismic data (was) interpreted" (Chief Scientist, Geoscience Australia 2012) in particular in the NW Australian frontier with "BP Exploration (Alpha)....work program(s) of $600 million" (Chief Scientist, Geoscience Australia 2012).
Memory research in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) undertaken at City University London over the past two decades shows that individuals with ASD experience great difficulty in spontaneously recalling past events without retrieval support. This work has been extended recently to show that a widely-used forensic interviewing technique (the Cognitive Interview) is not effective in improving the eyewitness accounts of adults with ASD. The key impact from this research has arisen from continuing knowledge transfer to Police forces and the Ministry of Justice with the aim of amending good practice guidelines for interviewing eyewitnesses with ASD. This is being achieved through a series of workshops and training activities, which to date have reached around 5000 police officers who are working on the ground.
Over 25 years, research by Hendry and Stevenson has explored the specific challenges faced by Make-to-Order (MTO) manufacturing companies and developed a novel Workload Control (WLC) approach, which has been most notably implemented in PDS Engineering. This led to significant increases in successful bids and reductions in lead times for PDS, with a knock on effect through their supply chain that includes large aerospace companies like Rolls-Royce. Publication of this stream of research led to international collaborations including in the Netherlands and Belgium, where an EU project involving 10 firms and further consultancy work has also led to reductions in lead times, typically of over 50%. The WLC approach is now ready for commercialisation in the UK.