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This case study describes how research undertaken by Sophia Davidova and Alistair Bailey contributed to raising the issue of the welfare of small farmers in Europe onto the EU policy agenda. The impact of their research is clearly reflected in papers and legislative proposals produced by the European Commission. As a result of the research, the European Commission was able to identify clearly the policy target group and to propose a simplified post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) flat-rate payment scheme to small and semi-subsistence farmers, which was debated and approved by the EU Council and Parliament in June 2013. The impact has been international in reach and has led to significant policy change for EU subsistence farmers.
The direct beneficiaries of the research have been agricultural policy makers in the European Commission. The indirect beneficiaries are the 11 million small farmers who, within the CAP for the period 2013-2020, will enjoy a simplified flat-rate payment scheme for support.
BEAA's large-scale research designing and testing alternative grazing management systems for the uplands has achieved impact on the environment and economy. Environmental policy and its implementation via agri-environment schemes has been directly and indirectly influenced, with the evidence provided by the research vital to the development of grazing prescriptions and related payment structures by government agencies and conservation bodies. The results have also benefitted the upland farming community by identifying opportunities for improved productivity and hence economic viability; through e.g. more efficient use of pasture resources leading to higher growth rates for forage-based systems and reduced reliance on purchased feed and fertiliser.
European Union (EU) law stipulates that governments must conserve listed species of conservation concern, necessitating the legal designation of Special Protection Areas (SPA) and the design and implementation of appropriate land management and other targeted conservation policies. Such policies should be underpinned by robust scientific understanding of population ecology, but this is rarely achieved for populations of immediate conservation concern.
A University of Aberdeen study of Scotland's remaining red-billed chough bird population provided the scientific understanding and evidence required to designate a new SPA, introduce new components to the Scottish government's agri-environment policy and underpin emergency management intervention.
The research thereby impacted statutory land designation and agricultural policy, and hence the management and conservation of a figurehead natural population in Scotland.
The UK's decision to introduce voluntary modulation led directly from research conducted at Newcastle University between 1993 and 2008 which demonstrated conclusively that broadening the scope of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies beyond supporting agricultural production through `modulation' would greatly benefit the environment and rural economies. The success of modulation in the UK then led to compulsory modulation being introduced throughout the European Union (EU). Up to 2013 modulation has generated outstanding impacts by providing more than €10 billion of new funding for environmental management and rural development across the EU.
The Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) has undertaken research providing a sustained contribution to understanding beneficiary-focused EU and UK rural development (RD) policies. This used novel, context-sensitive and mixed-method evaluation techniques to capture complex, systemic impacts and diagnose causal linkages between design and delivery, and policy performance. In so doing it has generated direct impacts in improved RD policy making and evaluation. The research has influenced restructuring in EU policy frameworks for RD and changed England's upland policy. By increasing policymakers' understanding of farm-level behaviours and responses to agri-environmental policy goals, CCRI's research has stimulated better-communicated and integrated advisory approaches.
Since 1994 the university's Agriculture and Environment Research Unit has undertaken an extensive programme of research on the environmental impacts of agriculture. This has been instrumental in providing agricultural practitioners, policy makers and researchers from around the world with a range of tools that have helped to deliver agri-environmental policy objectives on farms. These tools have aided farmers in improving their environmental performance, provided evidence to support policy objectives, and helped improve the accuracy and comparability of environmental risk assessments.
Professor Martin Dangerfield's research has focused on subregional cooperation in post-Cold War Europe with special emphasis on interactions with broader European integration processes. Its significance was acknowledged by policy-making communities at national, subregional and EU level. Dangerfield was appointed to advisory roles in events that both debated and informed public policy and enhanced public awareness. These concerned multilateral foreign policy cooperation of new EU members, namely the Visegrad Group (VG), and conception, design and implementation of a major EU initiative — the `Macro-Regional Strategy'. Dangerfield's work has also been cited widely in relevant non-academic publications produced for policy analysis and to deliver recommendations.
Research led by Midmore over the past two decades has improved understanding of the impact of external pressures on hill and upland farming systems, and consequent effects on the wider social, demographic and environmental context in which they are set. This provided evidence for improved agricultural and agri-environmental policymaking, of particular usefulness in the context of a newly devolved administration, and also stimulated the development of practical initiatives involving individual farm and non-farm beneficiaries, recreational visitors and eco-tourists, and other stakeholder beneficiaries. It helped to counteract adverse economic trends, and heightened public awareness of the interdependence of cultural assets, recreational potential and natural beauty with agricultural methods to achieve a sustainable hill and upland economy and society.
Research on the management and implementation of EU Cohesion policy has informed the legislative proposals made in 2011 by the European Commission for the reform of Cohesion policy. It has also influenced some organisational changes within the Commission introduced in early 2013. EU Cohesion policy is the second largest area of expenditure in the EU budget, currently worth c. €347bn for the 2007-13 period, and provides funding for regional socio-economic development programmes in all EU Member States. The legislative proposals influenced by the Strathclyde research affect every national, regional and local authority in the EU benefiting from EU Structural and Cohesion Funds.
This case study focuses on the impact of research undertaken within the European Research Centre (ERC) and the Centre for the Study of International Governance at Loughborough University between 1993 and 2009, primarily by Professor Linda Hantrais (1993-2008 and now Emeritus). The impact of the research has been created through high quality cross-national socio-demographic analysis which has underpinned policy formation and delivery at the European and national levels, with particular reference to social policy, citizenship and family policy. It has had a substantial further impact by generating advances in international comparative research methods and training.