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Since the Bradford Riots in 2001, research at Bradford has helped to defuse underlying tensions between deprived, multiethnic communities and between them and the local state thus strengthening community resilience in the city. Building on global research, particularly in Latin America, we have introduced participatory and peace-building methodologies into the locality, but with implications beyond it. The Programme for a Peaceful City enhances our impact through academic-practitioner reflection spaces. Our research with rather than on communities fosters their voice in policy, contributing to a non-confrontational response to the EDL in 2010, 2012 and 2013 and bringing community activists from Bradford's diverse communities together to co-create the ESRC-funded Community University (Comm-Uni-ty) in May 2013.
Rhythm Changes is Europe's largest ever jazz research project to date, examining the inherited traditions and practices of European jazz cultures, engaging audiences, performers, the creative industries and arts agencies in the collection, interpretation and sharing of cultural experiences, resources and data, demonstrating the following impact:
Successive Scottish Governments, local authorities, statutory bodies and sector agencies have sought to address issues of community (re)engagement with their historic environment within community-building and place-making social agendas. Through History Tomorrow, our commercial history unit, we have been central to initiatives designed to restore property of the past to communities. Our major impact is with Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) projects like Prestongrange, Kilmun, and the Ochils Landscape Partnership (OLP), where community volunteers were trained and empowered to undertake their own research, thereafter becoming trainers themselves. Imparting such training skills to community volunteers restores a sense of possession of their `own' histories and effectively inculcates post-funding sustainability amongst them.
Two documents, a Resolution of the European Parliament (September 2008) and a Declaration of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers (February 2009), both encouraging Member States to support community media, have been used at national and European level to persuade governments to support such media initiatives. The key researcher, Peter Lewis, was commissioned by the Council of Europe to write a report, Promoting Social Cohesion: The Role of Community Media, which provided the basis for the Council of Europe's Declaration. Lewis was also consulted by the European Parliament's rapporteur in the preparation of the Resolution.
We have worked with over 100 music and radio organisations to help them meet the challenges which have arisen due to innovations in distribution consumption and interaction technologies. Our impact has concentrated on responding to transformations in music consumption culture and has contributed to the enhancement of economic prosperity, public service and cultural life. Our work has been central to fundamental changes in the activities of several radio and music organisations, either significantly improving their economic position or changing the way they interact with their audiences. We have had further non-economic impacts through a contribution to grassroots music organisations worldwide.
This impact case study focuses on the effects of digital technologies on rural communities, including networks of inter-tribal relationships in Kenya. It emanates from a social model of user needs that, having transcultural applications, enabled rural communities across Kenya to document their suppressed histories, identify their community needs and become empowered agents in a process of peace and reconciliation. Parallel research on digital activism in rural and urban communities has helped citizens to understand their democratic place in a wider society in order to enhance their political participation. International policy-makers and campaigners in voluntary associations and NGOs have adopted the model.
We have worked as media and cultural historians, archive experts and media producers, and collaborated with a variety of public institutions and communities of interest, to draw attention to neglected histories, to respond to the opportunities afforded by new digital technologies, to disseminate archived material, and to interpret it for wide audiences. Through our work we have contributed to an improvement in the understanding and practice of media history, in particular the exploration and archiving of, and engagement with, the popular cultural artefacts which index its lived experience. Most noteworthy has been our contributions to the development of online and offline communities of interest by integrating processes of knowledge exchange into our research, in order to promote co-curation, and discussion about cultural value, memory and collecting. Our impact is measured in the development of popular practices of preservation, in the circulation of media products we have created from archive material, and in our engagements in public projects and with cultural institutions, audiences and policy makers. This work has regional, national and international reach.
Research undertaken in Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University has directly led to changes in the powers and regulatory structures of parish, town and community councils in England and Wales, through legislation (Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011), and to new guidance and modifications to the Quality Parish and Town Council Scheme in England. These changes have empowered parish, town and community councils to play a greater role in service delivery and community development; promoted wider citizen engagement in community governance; and increased the democratic accountability of local councils.
This case study is underpinned by the first qualitative research study of national significance into the views of white working class communities on community cohesion. It builds on over 10 years of research into community cohesion at Coventry University. The case study includes impacts on:
Beneficiaries include central and local government policy-makers, members of charities and funders, lobbying groups, think tanks and political parties, political commentators, housing professionals, journalists, social workers and the general public.
Using her self-transformation methodology [5], Dr Angela Espinosa worked with an Irish eco-community, which had previously tried to self-organise with little success, to help community members identify and develop new structures, systems and mechanisms that improved performance and contributed to dealing with key viability threats. They acquired skills in community self-transformation, allowing them to: a) improve the community organisation; b) enhance connectivity and communications; c) complete the expansion of the ecovillage, d) sell and build more eco-houses, overcoming financial threats; and e) design and develop several new green businesses.