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Research on Nazi Germany and specifically its appropriation of Jewish-owned art led to Professor Sir Richard Evans's appointment to the Spoliation Advisory Panel of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which resolves claims for cultural objects lost during the Nazi era. As the only historian on the Panel, Professor Evans has used his research to provide expert advice that has played a significant role in shaping the five reports and recommendations published by the Panel since 2008. This has resulted in the resolution of a number of disputes and played a role in the ongoing process of reconciliation following the Second World War. In 2012 Professor Evans was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Panel. He played a significant part in the deliberations of the Panel that led to the drafting of the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009.
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.
Professor Rainer Schulze's research on the history of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp provided a new analysis of the singular role of Bergen-Belsen in the system of Nazi concentration camps. This research informed a new permanent exhibition at the Gedenkstätte (memorial site) at Bergen-Belsen. The new exhibition has educated hundreds of thousands of visitors since it opened in 2007, and has improved the reputation of the Gedenkstätte, allowing it to secure a donation from the Berlin Bundesregierung of €1million and to incr ease its permanent staff number. In the UK, Schulze's work has had effects on the teaching of Holocaust history in the UK, achieved through his participation in the annual University of Essex Holocaust Awareness week, his Key Stage 3 and 4 and A-Level workshops, and the establishment of the Dora Love Prize for schools in 2012.
In March 2013, the British Library (BL) launched the first national oral-history archive of the British Women's Liberation Movement (WLM). A permanent public resource preserving the voices of 1970s/1980s feminists, the archive was the outcome of 'Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation Oral History Project', a three-year Leverhulme-funded research-partnership project led by PI Margaretta Jolly, in partnership with curators at the BL and the Women's Library (WL). Through the national prominence this archive has achieved and the numerous curatorial, educational, cultural and community activities directly associated with it, the research is having a significant impact on the public perception of feminism, bringing it to life for new audiences.
Professor Sir Ian Kershaw's The End (2011) marked his `final word' on the Nazi state and so concluded research that fundamentally changed public understanding of Nazi power. A key stage in this transformation came with the publication of Kershaw's definitive biography of Adolf Hitler (2 vols: 1998, 2000), which during the assessment period continued to shape how the Third Reich was taught in schools and universities. Through his concept, 'working towards the Führer', Kershaw's publications have shifted public understandings across Europe of Hitler's relationship with the German people. A variety of publishing formats, including TV collaborations and a major exhibition at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, testify to the extent of the impact while responses to the research culminated with the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding. Beyond the Nazi state, Kershaw's work has profoundly influenced contemporary understandings of the Holocaust by demonstrating the incorporation of ordinary citizens in the system of government that made it possible. His research has thus changed both scholarly and public understanding of the nature of Nazi power, within both Germany and the wider confines of occupied Europe. Kershaw's contribution to European reconciliation, as emphasised by the Leipzig Book Award judges [S4], lies in our deeper comprehension of the historical circumstances of the Second World War and the Holocaust, which has allowed current generations to come to terms with these events, both in Germany and elsewhere.
Michael Cullinane's research on anti-imperialism has influenced the way in which history is taught in a number of secondary schools across the United States. By making the research for his book Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism available through lesson plans on his website www.antiimperialist.com, Cullinane has given students and teachers access to relevant learning resources. As a result, lesson plans and state curricula have changed. Secondly, Cullinane has promoted a transnational and global perspective of the Philippine-American War, which has been adopted by heritage organisations, such as the Lopez Foundation of Balayan and the Filipino-American Association of New England (PAMAS).
Previously unexplored aspects of the life and works of Russia's first Nobel Prize winner for literature, Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), were used in supporting new translations of the author's books, Dark Avenues and The Village. Glasgow researcher Andrei Rogatchevski supplied the key supplements to what were the first new translations of Bunin's work in three decades. These volumes, published by Alma Classics, have sold a combined total of 3,433 copies in the UK and overseas, exceeding the publisher's sales target and garnering positive critical acclaim.
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.