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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.
Public understanding of the national past has been expanded by the creation, updating, and widespread use of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). It is the most comprehensive biographical reference work in the English language and includes (in May 2013) biographies of 58,661 people over two millennia. The ODNB is the `national record' of those who have shaped the British past, and disseminates knowledge while also prompting and enhancing public debate. The Dictionary informs teaching and research in HEIs worldwide, and is used routinely by family and local historians, public librarians, archivists, museum and gallery curators, schools, broadcasters, and journalists. The wider cultural benefit of this fundamental research resource has been advanced by a programme of online public engagement.
Research into industrial process tomography has been performed at the University of Leeds from 1999 to the present day with much of this being in collaboration with Industrial Tomography Systems plc (ITS). This research, together with the associated intellectual property, has provided the foundation of 5 innovative new products developed and produced by ITS during the eligible period. These new products have generated sales of £5m and are in large part responsible for increases in turnover and employment of approximately 60%, and exports of 67% since 2008. These instruments are used in a significant number of new applications and are generating major benefits to end users in the oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, consumer products, minerals and food sectors.
Three research projects emerging from audio materials in the University of Edinburgh's Scottish Studies Archives (SSA) and from the Greig-Duncan folksong collection have forged a new understanding of the role of tradition in Scotland and internationally. These projects contribute to the reanimation of Scotland's rich traditional heritage by transferring into a contemporary context music and song preserved in these cultural artefacts. Through our websites (since 2010 ca. 9,000 hits per month from 98 different countries), public performances in Scotland, Ireland and North America, educational packages, CDs and radio broadcasts (ca. 50,000 weekly listeners 2008-13) we combine the old with the new, and have thus influenced the way the cultural and educational professions, performers and the general public engage with the traditional arts of Scotland.
This case study describes the impact of a sustained programme of research conducted over more than 10 years, which has changed conceptualisations of young children's abilities and needs, and shaped national and local provision from birth to five. The research has influenced early years policy, secondary legislation, professional standards and training, curriculum, and the daily experiences of babies, children and practitioners in every childcare setting in England. It has produced innovative resources to enhance multi-professional practice, and significantly contributed to the deployment of high-quality, interdisciplinary research findings to improve provision, stimulate debate and challenge conventional wisdom about children and childhood.
The Dr Williams's Centre for Dissenting Studies, a collaboration between the Queen Mary English Department and Dr Williams's Library, Gordon Square, London, has undertaken a long-term and ongoing programme of funded research projects, public engagement events, and publications in print and online. Dr Williams's Library is a non-HEI (owned by Dr Williams's Trust, Charity number 214926) dedicated to the preservation and study of collections related to the history of Protestant dissent. Prof Isabel Rivers (QMUL 2004-), and Dr David Wykes, Director of the Library, founded the Centre in 2004 because of their mutual interest in the field. The work of the Centre's Queen Mary researchers, including publications hosted on the Centre's website, has enhanced the public profile of the Library, improved its accessibility to the wider public, and transformed the public understanding of the history of Protestant dissent.
Research at the University of Leeds led to the development of UltraCane — an ultrasonic cane for people who are visually-impaired that gives tactile feedback to the user's hand with progressive non-contact warning of obstacles (ground-to-head) up to 4 m. [text removed for publication]. Testimonials from users describe its transformative nature on their quality of life, giving `a true feeling of independence', whilst healthcare professionals commend `the simplicity of operation and ease of use'. Furthermore, with a technology mimicking bat echolocation, the UltraCane has informed and engaged the wider public in science and engineering through, for example, the BBC `Miracles of Nature' series. The technology has also been developed to allow people who are visually-impaired to cycle independently and safely around a cycle track — the `UltraBike'.
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.
This impact case concerns the stimulation of public discourse, informing the awareness, attitudes and understanding of the public as to the potential for automating science, and the consequences that then arise regarding ethics, rights and the acquisition of knowledge. It also concerns debate among legal practitioners.
The Robot Scientist was the first system to fully automate the process of scientific investigation. This work showed that it was possible. The idea was immediately picked up by the popular press and covered worldwide (the fourth most significant discovery in 2009 according to TIME magazine, reported by TV, radio, national newspapers and magazines, and bloggers). It engaged the public in debate about AI, robotics, lab automation, and science.
There are two ways in which Erle's research on William Blake, Physiognomy and text-image relationships have achieved public impact. First, a display and a Scholar's Morning on "Blake and Physiognomy" at Tate Britain (2010-11) and there were also invitations to give public lectures for "Haus der Romantik", a Literature Museum specialising on Romanticism in Marburg (Germany) and for the Blake Society, a London-based but international organisation of Blake scholars and enthusiasts. Second, an online-exhibition on Lord Alfred Tennyson's copy of Blake's Job for the Tennyson Research Centre (2012-13) and a display on Blake, Tennyson and Anne Gilchrist in Lincoln Public Library.