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The Rylands Cairo Genizah Project has had impact through its conservation, presentation, and interpretation of an internationally important archive of manuscripts which illuminate all aspects of the history, and the religious, social, and commercial life of the Jews in the Levant from the 9th to the 19th centuries. This collection is of deep interest to the Jewish community in the UK and abroad, and forms part of the cultural capital of this country, where the vast bulk of it is now housed. The project has also had an impact on heritage experts, by developing methods which have been applied to recording and disseminating other cultural assets.
Academic work carried out at the University of Southampton's Parkes Institute has greatly raised public awareness and understanding of the Holocaust. The research has challenged audiences to reflect on the individual consequences of discrimination and urges them to recognise and respond to the continuing contemporary dangers of genocide. Through various projects, the research has impacted upon international audiences: with a website averaging 24,000 hits per month; with museum exhibitions, for close to three million visitors; and with research-based study-days for school and adult learners. Throughout, the work emphasises the devastation wrought by the Holocaust on `ordinary' people, and reflects upon the `ordinariness' of genocide in the twentieth century.
Deriving from Brady's research on modernist cinema, and Carter's on film reception, the impact focuses on the development of UK reception contexts for German-language film. Both researchers have long worked to enhance public understanding of German-language cinema through curatorship, film talks, and forms of intercultural mediation including translation and interpreting. Since 2011-12, work has focused on creating a sustainable national initiative that translates public engagement into audience impact. The key innovation here is the German Screen Studies Network, a forum for public debate on and promotion of German-language film. Chief beneficiaries are German cinema enthusiasts, cultural partners and collaborating institutions.
Professor David Feldman's research has influenced thinking about antisemitism, racism and multiculturalism among a range of organisations and policy makers. Since becoming first director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in 2010, he has shaped its development by pursuing a distinctive course of public engagement, with partners such as the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, underpinned by the insights of his research over two decades. As a result, he and the Pears Institute are recognised as significant forces shaping public discourse and policy thinking on issues related to antisemitism.
This case study examines the impact of Catherine Wheatley's research into spectatorship, audiences, and critical contexts through engagement with the popular press and public-facing media institutions. It focuses on Wheatley's work with Sight & Sound, the monthly consumer magazine published by the British Film Institute, which reaches beyond academia to a cine-literate but non-specialist audience. Her research has influenced discussion and criticism of cinema for a large, interested cine-enthusiastic audience as well as contributing to broader public debate and cultural discussion of cinema through mass-media appearances. She has also judged a competition for budding female critics, encouraging more women to write thoughtfully on film, and nurturing a new generation of women critics through which her research has been able to influence the practice of film criticism more widely.
Research by University of Exeter academics has increased the public's participation in, and appreciation of, the history and pre-history of cinema. Much of this has been achieved by collaborative projects with the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, a free-entry museum located on the Exeter campus, which has a large collection (65,000 items) of international stature. A number of funded digitisation projects to improve accessibility have presented as well as preserved cultural heritage. The main impacts of this research have been to:
Through the agency of Screen Archive South East (SASE) and Cinecity, GRAY's research has transformed the history and wider understanding of screen cultures, particularly during the industry's formative years. Primarily his work has affected public life through the collection, preservation, cataloguing and conversion of diverse footage to publicly accessible formats, creating access to material from otherwise marginalised and forgotten film histories. Engaging with local communities, national and international museums and broadcasters, he has developed new public audiences for contemporary and historical screen culture that have generated over £1.8m in income, with total audiences exceeding 25 million. Secondly, his research has shaped public policy by contributing to the strategic direction of screen heritage across the UK.
There has been a continuing demand for public lectures to audiences of all ages demonstrating an appetite for understanding the early marginalisation of Jews: Martin Goodman's research on the place of Jews and Judaism in the Roman world from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE has expanded public awareness of the treatment of minorities in imperial systems, the origins of anti-Semitism, the early development of Rabbinic Judaism, and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism in antiquity (which has implications for interfaith relationships in the present day). Goodman's research findings are also sought after on undergraduate teaching courses and have advised a historically-themed television series.
Platinum Group Elements (PGE) are critical strategic metals because of their unrivalled applications in catalysts, fuel cells and electronics and cancer therapies. Research and analytical methods developed at Cardiff have impacted on exploration for new PGE deposits, and more efficient processing of PGE ores by international mining companies. A key milestone between 2009 and 2012 was the discovery of a 3 billion year old giant impact crater in West Greenland. This discovery is of major economic significance because all craters previously found in this size class are associated with multi-billion dollar mineral and/or hydrocarbon resources. It led to an intellectual property transaction worth CDN$ 2.1 million and discovery of nickel and PGE deposits in Greenland by North American Nickel Incorporated.
Northern Lights was a University of Edinburgh research project that engaged members of the Scottish public in documenting their lives on camera. Its objective was to create a novel, multi-perspective documentary portrait of the Scottish nation in 2012. The project had enormous scope: press and media impact reached over 4 million people. Northern Lights made its impact by empowering the 1,500 individuals who contributed video portraits to explore issues such as addiction, disabilities and mental health. Northern Lights thus opened up a unique opportunity for participants to represent their experience, voicing, for themselves and for a wider, national audience, often poorly understood and neglected sectors of society.