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Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies: research benefiting an independent library and its users

Summary of the impact

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.

Submitting Institution

Queen Mary, University of London

Unit of Assessment

English Language and Literature

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Information and Computing Sciences: Library and Information Studies
Language, Communication and Culture: Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Local and Regional History of Wessex

Summary of the impact

Winchester's History Department has an impact on all periods of local and regional history, principally that of Wessex, engaging with:

  • The general public, especially those interested in Anglo-Saxon Wessex, via two exhibitions of international significance and reach.
  • Volunteers, local communities of the Basingstoke area, and more widespread local historians through the internet edition of the New Victoria County History of Hampshire.
  • Local and family historians everywhere via the interactive websites of the Overland Trade Project (a detailed study of pre-industrial inland trade) and of the 1549 rebellions.

Submitting Institution

University of Winchester

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Transforming access to, and raising awareness of the Penguin Archive

Summary of the impact

The Penguin Archive Project, funded by a major grant from the AHRC [7], produced an online catalogue of the Penguin Collection at the University of Bristol Library (launched in 2011). Penguin Books transformed the range and greatly extended the availability of books to a general readership in the twentieth century. The Penguin Archive located at the University of Bristol can therefore be conceived of as a record of the democratisation of reading in the UK in the twentieth century. As a result of the Penguin Archive Project impact has been realised in three main areas: improving access to the Penguin Archive and making it easier to use for a variety of non-academic users; raising awareness and understanding of the significance of the archive and the rich cultural heritage of Penguin books through public engagement and media activities including a major international conference in 2010; developing collaborative links with Penguin and contributing to their publishing practice. As a result, researchers, editors, authors, publishers and other users such as the Penguin Collectors Society now have access to this major resource.

Submitting Institution

University of Bristol

Unit of Assessment

English Language and Literature

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Policy and Administration
Language, Communication and Culture: Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835

Summary of the impact

This case study relates to cultural life and education. Kenneth Fincham is an internationally renowned scholar in the field of British Early Modern History, and the impact arose from a major research programme funded by the AHRC to create:

The database is an online resource launched in 2005 and available free to all users. It provides a relational database and supporting website containing key information on clergy, schoolteachers and ecclesiastical patrons which has brought together for the first time a comprehensive range of sources. From the start CCEd was designed to serve constituencies outside as well as within academia, and it has proved an invaluable resource for genealogists across the globe seeking information on clerical ancestors, local historians researching parish histories, independent researchers interested in the clergy, and hard-pressed archivists responsible for managing and interpreting major diocesan collections. It has received in excess of 9.9m hits since 2010 and highly positive feedback from its many different types of user.

Submitting Institution

University of Kent

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Information and Computing Sciences: Library and Information Studies
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies

Secord

Summary of the impact

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.

Submitting Institution

University of Cambridge

Unit of Assessment

Philosophy

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Sharing Our Heritage: fostering public engagement with regional archives and ‘doing history’

Summary of the impact

Lancaster's History department has built on its tradition of service and consultancy to transform public resources for, and engagement with, the history of northern England (Lancashire, Cumbria, Northumberland, and the Borders). This has been achieved through: i) creating open-access databases of historical sources with tailored support for non-academic users; ii) training non-academics in historical research and engaging them in projects, thereby empowering people in the region and beyond to `do history', particularly through the Victoria County History, Cumbria: a community-based project fostering life-long learning, led by the department and funded through partnership with a charitable trust; iii) contributing to the development of a new archive centre in Carlisle, thus enhancing the region's archival infrastructure.

Submitting Institution

Lancaster University

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

‘Connecting Cornwall: Telecommunications, Work and Locality in West Britain, 1870-1918’

Summary of the impact

Dr Richard Noakes led `Connecting Cornwall', a project working with the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum (PTM) from February 2009 - July 2012, looking at the lives and careers of the `ordinary' men who operated the Victorian and Edwardian British submarine cable network.

The project was fundamental in building a working relationship with PTM that now paves the way for future research-based collaborations. The exhibition also raised the profile of PTM. A new section of the website was created for PTM, greatly improving its online presence and user experience. Impacts on the public have included providing access to previously unseen archival material, preserving and displaying artefacts of cultural heritage and in educating people with regards to their local history.

Submitting Institution

University of Exeter

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Magna Carta

Summary of the impact

Magna Carta is the most famous document in English, perhaps in world history. Yet many of its aspects remain mysterious both to scholars and to the general public. It is much cited yet too little read or understood. From seeds first sewn in the field of thirteenth-century manuscript studies, Vincent has harvested an enterprise that has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records, that extends from the auction houses of New York to the Australian Senate, and that has been crowned by the award of a £910,000 AHRC research grant that will underpin the public understanding of Magna Carta during its 800th anniversary celebrations.

Submitting Institution

University of East Anglia

Unit of Assessment

History

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Law and Legal Studies: Law
Language, Communication and Culture: Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

Blackburn & Naismith

Summary of the impact

In the past five years, the research of Dr Mark Blackburn and Dr Rory Naismith has been crucial to transforming the personal and professional development of amateur metal detectorists and collectors. Early medieval coins discovered by the latter have been integral to this research, and dissemination of research conclusions has led detectorists to search more responsibly and report their finds. Dr Blackburn and Dr Naismith's research has thus shaped attitudes towards the heritage value of coinage among the general public, metal-detector users and in the commercial sector. Their success in achieving this impact has been based on presentation of research through electronic databases, public outreach and printed publications.

Submitting Institution

University of Cambridge

Unit of Assessment

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Curatorial and Related Studies, Historical Studies

Anglo-Norman Dictionary Case-study

Summary of the impact

The main aim of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND) in impact terms is to provoke a revision of the understanding of the role of Anglo-Norman in the development of English and to demonstrate how the language (especially the vocabulary) of the incoming Normans impinged on and fed into English. The project and its freely-available online dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net) have attracted considerable attention from the educated lay public with interests in language history, genealogy, family names, aspects of language use in Britain in the Middle Ages, and social history.

Impact has been achieved by speaking to non-academic groups; contributing to audio and visual displays in museums; and by being interviewed by Radio 4; Trotter appeared as an expert in a National Geographic film on broadly related matters to do with medieval literature; and the AND has been awarded a prestigious French prize. The AHRC decided to feature the AND as a project on their website in autumn 2012, suggesting that it is perceived as beneficial to their own impact and publicity strategy.

Submitting Institution

Aberystwyth University

Unit of Assessment

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Linguistics, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

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