Log in
Professor Patrick Dunleavy, as Director of the LSE Public Policy Group (PPG), has led a research programme on digital era governance. The results of this programme, through published research, evidence to Parliament and direct consulting to government agencies (including the National Audit Office), have had a significant impact on the UK government's approach to the delivery of government services online. Specifically, the research has allowed the government to develop policies that have facilitated speedier and more effective digital changes, and increased the breadth and quality of public service delivery online.
Research from the Digital arts strand of the CMR has had an impact in two related areas.
Research at the University of Dundee providing original insights and new directions in the way that internet technologies and data can be embedded in the real world through being given physical forms has lead to impacts that include:
Our research on the ways in which digital platforms enable people to make and share creative material online, and thereby foster creativity in individuals and groups, has had a number of particular direct impacts on the media and cultural industries. At the LEGO Group, there have been several impacts, on policy, on training, and on product development. At BBC Children's, collaborative research about an online world for children led to changes in commissioning processes. At S4C, the work had an impact on digital media strategy, and led to a change in the company's statement of overall corporate aims and values.
This case study describes the impact of research undertaken by Falmouth's Autonomatic Research Group on developments in the UK Craft and Designer-Maker sector. This sector consists of individual or small groups of creative practitioners producing high value individual and bespoke products in studio/workshop environments using ceramic, glass, metals, textile and mixed media. This sector has been slow to benefit from the digital economy for reasons including cost, perceptions of relevance, accessibility and training. Autonomatic has worked to highlight digital technologies relevance to small scale and bespoke manufacturing, increase accessibility, and provide opportunities for businesses' and communities' creative development.
Department of Information Studies (DIS) researchers (Judith Broady-Preston, Nicole Convery (née Schulz), Kirsten Ferguson-Boucher, Allen Foster, Sarah Higgins) contribute to the preservation and long-term accessibility of digital assets across the heritage, public, private and commercial sectors. They have developed, and widely disseminated, a series of toolkits and models which are helping government, professionals and organisations adapt to the changing technical landscape. Their research informs and influences data management policy and practice; provides guidance on operational and lifecycle management of digital information; and underpins the relevant sections of professional guidance documents by high profile international and national organisations. Knowledge is contributed to both: information practice and policy advancement; and practitioner continuing professional development (CPD), through participation in international and national training events, working groups and practical workshops.
Research conducted by the UCL SCEMFA research group into materialising the digital has had many and varied impacts, including the creation of new forms of artistic expression, and the production of new cultural resources. The research has also had demonstrable impacts on cultural heritage, both through the acquisition of its outputs into important national collections and through contributions to policy relating to the preservation of digital artefacts. Wider societal and cultural contributions have been delivered through work in the public realm, and commercial benefits have accrued through collaboration with Liberty.
LSE research has helped shape children's internet literacy and safety policy. In the UK, the research informed the establishment of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) and the creation by the Council of the UK's first Child Internet Safety Strategy. Based on the research, the Council tasked industry to improve safety tools, and raised awareness among parents and teachers. This has enhanced children's online opportunities, digital literacy and ability to cope with online risks, thereby reducing the probability of harm. In Europe, the research informed the European Commission's Safer Internet Programme's work on industry guidance, safety tools and awareness campaigns, shifting the emphasis from protecting children to empowering them to use the internet safely and with confidence. Policy and practical initiatives around the world draw on the methodology and findings of the research.
Franklin is a key participant in a formative period for global media and communications, in which power struggles over ownership and control of the internet are intensifying. Her work presaged the current global outcry over illegal forms of state-sponsored online surveillance and non-transparent forms of corporate storage and control of personal data. She combines participatory action research and critical theory with a leadership role in advocacy on human rights for the online environment. Focusing on UN and intergovernmental arenas in internet governance, her research unpacks how public, private, and civil society actors look to frame the terms of debate around diverging priorities for the internet's future design, access, and use. Her work has put human rights and principles advocacy for the internet onto the international human rights and internet governance agendas. It has played a formative role in increasing recognition — at the UN and European Union for instance — that online we have rights too.