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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.
Ysanne Holt was Academic Advisor and Commissioning Editor for Tate's Camden Town Group in Context project, funded through the Getty Foundation's Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative which aims to transform how museums disseminate information about their collections. Holt undertook and commissioned new research into the Group's artworks and their broader contexts. Impacts derived from the project's online catalogue include increased awareness for national and international public and specialists; and improved access to the art and its contexts via a multi-platform open access facility. In addition, the project has influenced the Tate's Digital Strategy and led to the creation of the new post of Digital Editor within Tate's Research Department.
From 2004 to the present, Gemma Blackshaw (Reader in Art History at Plymouth, 2002-present) has worked on the relationship between mental illness, psychiatry, and the visual arts in Vienna 1900. Through exhibition, a non-specialist book, film, and associated social media platforms, this work has reached and responded to audiences outside academia, including mental health communities. It has generated new knowledge, interpretations and approaches to the history and study of mental illness. It has encouraged international public discourse on how society used to engage with the mentally ill, and how we continue to engage with this community 100 years on.
Work undertaken by the Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) at the University of the Arts London (UAL) focuses on the role of identity and nation in the production and consumption of artwork and artefacts. This has resulted in an increased awareness and critical understanding of transnational art and design, to the benefit of the Museums and Galleries sector, arts organisations, and the artistic community.
Professor Chaney's research has had a major impact on the awareness of the Grand Tour as one of the most significant cultural phenomena since the Renaissance, today's cultural tourism being its most obvious legacy. This has been achieved by international publications, the organization of conferences, exhibitions, numerous well attended public lectures throughout Britain, continental Europe, Egypt, America and Australia, and contributions to television and radio programmes, including BBC 4 and Radio 4. His promotion of Italian culture has been recognized by the Italian government with the title of Commendatore. His research continues to reach global audiences through Adam Matthew Digital's publication on The Grand Tour, 2009.
As little as two decades ago, the notion of comics, graphic novels or bande dessinée (BD, French-language comic strips) as an academic field of study would have seemed unthinkable. Following Glasgow-led research and teaching, the study of BD has been accepted as a discipline worthy of intellectual engagement, with BD courses and modules adopted in around 20 universities across the UK, Europe and North America. This unique art form and cultural output has also been brought to a much broader public via exhibitions, conferences and media debate, with the emphasis on BD as a social mirror for which the historical context is key. Glasgow University's expertise in the study of Early Modern emblems, and its Stirling Maxwell Centre for the Study of Text/Image Cultures, has played a key role in establishing an intellectual and social link to today's French-language comic strips and graphic novels.
Professor Sinclair's project on `Wrongdoing in Spain 1800-1936' explores the difference between cultural representations of wrongdoing and their underlying realities, and includes the digitization and cataloguing of c4500 items of popular Spanish material held at the University Library, Cambridge (UL), and the British Library (BL). This contributes significantly to the conservation, stewardship, and enhanced accessibility of this ephemeral material, increasingly valued and recognized as important in Spain as part of its social history and heritage. Digitization also makes this fragile material available to support teaching. An exhibition of this material and comparable material in English runs at the UL, Cambridge April — December 2013, strongly supported by a virtual exhibition. Public engagement events extend the understanding of the relevance of this material to modern Britain.
A popular, influential and highly acclaimed public exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, London, and Wien Museum, `Madness and Modernity: Mental Illness and the Visual Arts in Vienna 1900' (2009), demonstrates the impacts of an interdisciplinary research cluster within Birkbeck's History of Art Department. Working with a number of academic and non-academic partners in Plymouth, London and Vienna, the AHRC-funded project contributed a new understanding of the development and role of the arts in turn-of-the-century Vienna. By engaging participants in new experiences and knowledge, it generated considerable media interest and public discourse that particularly benefited the non-academic partners.
As an internationally recognized expert in Gothic and science fiction, Roger Luckhurst has made a significant impact on the interpretation of and creative inspiration provided by these genres. His work has increased interest in popular Gothic fiction, the focus of this case study, by connecting it with knowledge and belief in the modern period, and treating it as a bellwether of significant cultural change. His introductions to new `World Classic' editions of several nineteenth century works have contributed significantly to their worldwide success. He has helped develop public discourse on the history of marginal beliefs and has inspired a number of artists engaging with these ideas.
`The Sublime Object' was a major AHRC-funded project of the Tate Britain, which used a range of open access media, free public exhibitions and events to promote new understanding of the ways in which perceptions of the Sublime in the external landscape are shaped by cultural experiences, and which was substantially shaped by Professor Philip Shaw's work.
Shaw worked with Tate Education/Learning to develop initiatives that would engage Tate's gallery and online audiences closely in an exploration of the concept of the Sublime, a theoretical concept encompassing ideas of the great, the awe-inspiring, and the overpowering. Through the collaboration of the public, artists, and academics, this work articulates ways in which the Sublime is experienced today. Shaw's research conceptually underpinned the project, helping to shape the ideas of artists, Tate visitors (in person and online), and curators. His thinking for pieces commissioned by the project was, in turn, shaped by this dialogue, demonstrating the enrichment of research via its initial impact.