Log in
Dr Christopher Pittard's research focuses on Victorian popular culture and representations of criminality. This work played a significant part in developing Portsmouth City Council's cultural and tourism strategies, informing the council's literature strategy and the Home of Great Writing programme, and strengthening the reputation of Portsmouth as a thriving literary city. Public engagement activities have raised awareness locally, nationally and internationally, of the city's significant associations with Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. These initiatives are central facets of the Local Authority's strategy for economic development and have shaped Cultural Services' ongoing policy commitments.
Dr Katharina Hall's blog Mrs Peabody Investigates (http://mrspeabodyinvestigates.wordpress.com/; henceforth MPI) has been fostering public debate on German, European and international crime fiction since January 2011. Beneficiaries include readers, authors, translators, publishers, critics and bloggers in 130 countries. With over 220,000 hits and 2,500 comments, MPI has been featured on BBC Radio 4 and is linked to by BBC Online, crime blogs, and publisher/author websites (C10). Providing a distinctive service of academically-informed reviews of high-quality crime fiction, MPI is regarded in the industry as 'a ground-breaking blog that is transforming readers' understanding and appreciation of international crime' (The Times crime-fiction critic).
The Nordic Noir Crime Fiction Book Club (NNBC) responds to the current intense UK interest in Scandinavian crime writing and television. It provides a face-to-face and online community of fans of Nordic crime fiction in English in which research on the politics, history, language, and visual and literary culture of the Nordic welfare states stimulates and informs public understanding of and engagement in the Nordic culture underlying crime fiction and television. NNBC also facilitates collaborative involvement and public understanding of broader societal issues and challenges pertaining to crime fiction and television, including politics, language, identity, violence, the publishing and television industries, reading practices, translation, and visual culture.
Critical public policy debates on the likely effect of reductions in police staffing levels and on understanding the implications of crime patterns have been informed by findings from research conducted at the University of Birmingham by Dr Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay. The novel research contributed to raising public and practitioner awareness and understanding of the possible impact of cuts in police staffing, whether or not "prison works" and in explaining the apparent paradox of a fall in recorded acquisitive crime during a recession. These findings, which often challenged political perspectives and conventional wisdom, were initially publicised by an independent think-tank, Civitas, and followed-up in national press articles (one of which generated approximately 450 reader comments) and presentations to stakeholder agencies including central UK Government.
Research undertaken by Armitage and Hirschfield and colleagues from the Applied Criminology Centre (ACC) has made a significant contribution to crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Emerging from a wider programme of study in the field of environmental criminology, research completed at the University of Huddersfield since 2004 into `designing out' crime has been incorporated into national and local planning policy and procedures and has influenced international urban planning. This research has underpinned the UK Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) success in extending the designing out crime initiative, Secured By Design (SBD), to 350,000 homes, and in reducing burglary rates by more than half in housing designed to this standard.
Professor Ian Loader's research on the concept of `penal moderation' shaped the final report of the Commission on English Prisons Today and helped to inform the policy arguments of the UK's leading penal reform charity — the Howard League for Penal Reform. These arguments, in turn, influenced the criminal justice agenda of the Coalition Government. Loader's research on the politicization of crime and justice was also influential on the final report of the Justice Select Committee of the House of Commons on `Justice Reinvestment' (an initiative which seeks to create local financial incentives to invest in community penalties). Loader's research shaped the views of the Committee on how to build a political consensus for alternatives to imprisonment.
Research in this Unit at NTU has:
(a) Changed the way victimisation is conceptualised, measured, and reported within official crime surveys;
(b) Transformed the methodological evaluation of the impact of security devices upon crime and repeat victimisation through the introduction of multi-level statistical modelling as opposed to bivariate cross-tabulations which constituted the state of the art prior to her work.
Professor Tseloni's research has directly informed the methodological training of crime survey analysts (including those working on the Home Office British Crime Survey), and contributed through the dissemination of Home Office guidelines to the day-to-day crime reduction practices and responses to crime of police forces in England and Wales.
This case study focuses on the impact of the research of one member of the UCL English Department, John Mullan. It describes the impact of his introduction of techniques of narrative analysis to the general reader and to secondary school teachers and students. This has involved making accessible to the general public an informed historical understanding of the development of English fiction, communicating techniques of critical reading that assist the appreciation of both canonical and contemporary novels. This has meant acting as a bridge between contemporary writers and readers, and communicating via print, radio and television the history of the genre. It has also meant delivering the benefits of a specialised critical vocabulary to teachers teaching fiction at secondary school level.
Lincoln's research in 21st century literature and publishing has impacted upon local, national and global audiences. 21st century literature is unique in that: 1) opinion over which texts are considered to be the most valuable has not yet been firmly formed; and 2) critical sources on 21st century texts are sparse and often publicly inaccessible.
Lincoln's research into this area has had a direct, demonstrable influence on a BIS committee recommendation for government policy on open access in the UK and on top-level academic and government thinkers in Europe and Japan. Lincoln's open access publications, Alluvium and Orbit, break down the barriers between the public and academia to enhance the discussions of contemporary writing that are hosted at the university. Through discussions at live readings and performances and on internet channels, public audiences are invited to experience contemporary writing first-hand, and to participate in easily accessible online discussions about contemporary literature with internationally-leading scholars. Lincoln's strong research in this field — widely disseminated through high-profile conferences, a research group, a website, social media channels and two leading open access online journals - has been centred around creating a dialogue with the public, with a specific focus on schools and young people. The social and educational impact includes education about contemporary writers and their writing, the involvement of the public in forging opinion about what is valuable in 21st century literature, and influencing school teachers in their teaching practices
Short story writers, their supporters and the wider reading public have benefitted from the Thresholds International Short Story Forum. Thresholds arose out of the practice-as-research work of Alison MacLeod, and has become a leading international source of information and expertise for short fiction writers, readers, students and academics as evidenced by its 1,000+ registered members and other online activity. Feedback from those who use Thresholds indicates that new writing practice, motivation, literary productivity and publishing success have characterised the achievement of the site since its creation in 2010. Thresholds is now a vibrant hub of activity driving innovation in the short fiction form.