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The project is inspired by an impact agenda, its aim being to benefit many constituencies by making its research freely available on its website. The research is making a major contribution to public understanding of Magna Carta and helping to shape the agenda for the celebrations of its 800th anniversary in 2015. The resource encourages active involvement in history by many beneficiaries — local communities, family historians, the heritage industry, university students, and schools (where the reform of the history curricula re-emphasies this period of history) — allowing them to connect with their past in meaningful and hitherto impossible ways.
The Henry III Fine Rolls Project has reshaped understanding of the period between Magna Carta and the birth of the parliamentary state by preserving, conserving and presenting cultural heritage, and influencing the ideas of the profession. The Project has created a free, online English translation of the medieval Latin fine rolls of Henry III, housed in the National Archives (http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/index.html), bringing a vast body of previously unpublished primary material into the public domain that is now used extensively by archivists, genealogists, local historians, heritage organisations, teachers and researchers worldwide, who are interested in the history of thirteenth-century England. Thousands of new users for this resource have been engaged via the website.
The Wars of the Roses and Richard III remain engrossing and controversial after 500 years throughout the Anglophone world and beyond. Hicks and Holford have made a significant impact on public knowledge and understanding of the period's politics and society. Their publications, printed and online, are valuable resources for professional and amateur historians, students and the general public, nationally and internationally. Hicks' Anne Neville underpinned Philippa Gregory's novel, The Kingmaker's Daughter and hence the BBC series The White Queen. The website, blog and twitter, Mapping the Medieval Countryside, are making the inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) much more widely accessible and useful than hitherto.
Richard Beadle's ongoing research on the text and documentary records of the late medieval York cycle of Mystery Plays has made a crucial impact on performances at the York Festival in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Research since 1993 has issued in new scholarly editions in 2009 and 2013, and these (and his work on Medieval Drama more generally) have conserved and interpreted a vital example of cultural heritage for audiences and inspired new forms of artistic production outside the academy. This work has also contributed to economic prosperity via the creative sector, and to education outside the University of Cambridge.
Peter McCullough's research into the religious literature and history of Early Modern England led to his appointment in November 2010 as Lay Canon (with portfolio for history) of St Paul's Cathedral, London. Through his work as a member of the Cathedral Chapter, public lecturer, preacher, curator, and artistic advisor he has reanimated the cultural heritage of the church, bringing new understanding of it to large numbers of civic groups, church goers, and visitors — this at a period when the `Occupy London' protests brought St Paul's renewed attention as a place historically associated with intense debate about freedom of public speech.
The main aim of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND) in impact terms is to provoke a revision of the understanding of the role of Anglo-Norman in the development of English and to demonstrate how the language (especially the vocabulary) of the incoming Normans impinged on and fed into English. The project and its freely-available online dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net) have attracted considerable attention from the educated lay public with interests in language history, genealogy, family names, aspects of language use in Britain in the Middle Ages, and social history.
Impact has been achieved by speaking to non-academic groups; contributing to audio and visual displays in museums; and by being interviewed by Radio 4; Trotter appeared as an expert in a National Geographic film on broadly related matters to do with medieval literature; and the AND has been awarded a prestigious French prize. The AHRC decided to feature the AND as a project on their website in autumn 2012, suggesting that it is perceived as beneficial to their own impact and publicity strategy.
The Penguin Archive Project, funded by a major grant from the AHRC [7], produced an online catalogue of the Penguin Collection at the University of Bristol Library (launched in 2011). Penguin Books transformed the range and greatly extended the availability of books to a general readership in the twentieth century. The Penguin Archive located at the University of Bristol can therefore be conceived of as a record of the democratisation of reading in the UK in the twentieth century. As a result of the Penguin Archive Project impact has been realised in three main areas: improving access to the Penguin Archive and making it easier to use for a variety of non-academic users; raising awareness and understanding of the significance of the archive and the rich cultural heritage of Penguin books through public engagement and media activities including a major international conference in 2010; developing collaborative links with Penguin and contributing to their publishing practice. As a result, researchers, editors, authors, publishers and other users such as the Penguin Collectors Society now have access to this major resource.
Public understanding of the national past has been expanded by the creation, updating, and widespread use of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). It is the most comprehensive biographical reference work in the English language and includes (in May 2013) biographies of 58,661 people over two millennia. The ODNB is the `national record' of those who have shaped the British past, and disseminates knowledge while also prompting and enhancing public debate. The Dictionary informs teaching and research in HEIs worldwide, and is used routinely by family and local historians, public librarians, archivists, museum and gallery curators, schools, broadcasters, and journalists. The wider cultural benefit of this fundamental research resource has been advanced by a programme of online public engagement.
This case study concerns two forms of impact from the 2012 BBC2 television series, The Crusades, based on the research of Asbridge (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b3fpw): on the public understanding of the crusades; and on the creative industries. Asbridge's landmark television series, which he wrote and presented, informed public understanding of the crusades as an historical event with contemporary echoes in international political debate. In this example of one area of the School's historical research, a Queen Mary historian has drawn upon two decade's research on the history of the crusades to mediate his findings for a national and international public audience. Asbridge's series presented his research in an accessible, non-technical form to over two million viewers in the UK and to audiences across the world from Australia to Russia. In achieving a major BBC television commission to produce a series based on his research, Asbridge also made a contribution to the creative industries. The Crusades led to employment and prosperity for a television production company (360 Productions — www.360production.com/) and to the development of BBC television history.
In September 2012, the announcement that human remains discovered under a Leicester car park could be those of King Richard III (d. 1485) generated worldwide interest which grew to a frenzy when identification was confirmed in February 2013. This case-study illustrates the role played by the UoA in realising and maximising the impacts that arose from this remarkable discovery, namely: 1. direct economic benefits; 2. boosting local identities and sense of place; 3. changes in local and regional heritage and tourism; 4. stimulating public debate about the past, the ethics of dealing with a dead king, and the value of archaeology to contemporary society; 5. impact on schools and curricula; 6. impact on the perception of Richard III (e.g. in the theatrical profession and amongst disability campaigners); 7. stimulating partnerships across political and geographical boundaries.