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Shifting Impressionist studies to Scotland for the first time, this research (2005-12) stimulated debate about Impressionism and Scottish national identity. Setting the work of neglected Scottish artists in a European context, it experimented with the exhibition of Impressionist art. Reuniting lost collections, it created a precedent for cultural institutions to research, and communicate, the role of the commercial art market in the formation of taste. It enhanced the market value of some Scottish Impressionist art by a factor of us much as 800%, ignited popular interest in the collector Alex Reid, and also in The Glasgow Boys (with a record-breaking 105,000 people visiting one exhibition about their work).
In expanding our understanding of how Henry VIII used clothes to fashion his image, this research has had a cultural impact nationally and internationally, while producing economic benefits for the British heritage industry and Hampton Court Palace in particular. It has helped to alter the practices of curators, designers, costume interpreters, and education officers in historic houses and beyond. Key outcomes were published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession, thus benefiting from and contributing to, the large-scale public interest in the Tudors.
One of Scotland's cultural treasures, the Reformation-era Wode Partbooks (also known as the Wode Psalter), their music and their Reformation world have been brought together from locations in museums across Scotland and Europe for the first time and introduced and made better known to audiences within Scotland, the UK and internationally. Through public engagement this project has enriched awareness of the Scottish and British heritage and the value of the Wode Partbooks as a cultural object and record of the cultural impact of the Reformation. The project has also provided an impact on cultural life and education as particular interest groups, such as choirs, church groups, embroiderers and history enthusiasts have been actively engaged through choral and stitching workshops, public psalm-singing events and collaboration over publishing.
Impacts: I) Enhanced public engagement with Scotland's cartographic heritage. II) Enhanced cross-sector collaboration around the use and digital delivery of historical maps.
Significance and reach: A major synthesis of Scotland's map history sold >8,000 copies between publication in 2011 and April 2013 and was named `Scottish Research Book of the Year' by the Saltire Society (2012). Three online map collections experienced 2008 — June 2013 access levels >50% higher than those for pre-2008. The newsletter of the Scottish Maps Forum (launched 2008), reached 553 individual subscribers and 117 institutional subscribers (January 2013).
Underpinned by: Research into the mapping of Scotland from the late sixteenth century, undertaken at the University of Edinburgh (1996 onwards).
The Union of 1707 - the constitutional foundation of the modern British state — has been a controversial issue in Scottish history, society and politics for three centuries. With devolution (1999) and the forthcoming referendum (2014) interest in the history of the Union has intensified. The research project was about why Scotland surrendered her independence as a nation state in 1707 and accepted Westminster rule. The main output was Professor Whatley's 424-page monograph, The Scots and the Union (2006, 2007). Largely through public engagement, dissemination of the findings has enhanced public understanding, while study of the work in HEIs and schools has assured significant educational impact. By challenging received wisdom and contributing from an historical perspective to the current debate about Scotland's future, civil society has been better informed.
The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland project, completed in 2008, and its subsequent research developments have achieved considerable impact through widening global public awareness of this historical resource. Its free-to-access searchable database is accepted as the definitive point of reference for pre-Union Scottish legislation. The project's materials and findings have had sustained impact on archival, heritage, legal and policy practitioners, providing significant input to a wide spectrum of present-day political, social, economic, environmental and cultural initiatives, from public debate and consultation through to formal enactment. The project has also contributed to the enhancement of the history curriculum in Secondary education.
The collective research of Breitenbach, Delaney, Devine, MacKenzie, and Ugolini at the University of Edinburgh since 2006 has had impact in terms of public understanding, policy and museum practice in relation to the Scottish diaspora. Specifically it has: (i) enabled the transformation of public understanding of the emigration history of the Scots (a central part of the history of the nation) as global in territorial spread rather than simply confined to the settlement colonies and the USA; (ii) shaped the development of new Scottish Government policies of engagement with the global diaspora; and (iii) influenced the intellectual underpinning of new and revised national museum displays in Scotland especially in relation to empire and emigration.
In 2006 Professor David Walker and his team at the University of St Andrews launched a fully searchable, free, online database that has transformed the ways in which anyone interested in Scottish architecture from 1840 onwards engages with the subject. The Dictionary is widely used by archivists, family historians, house owners, estate agencies, independent conservation campaigners, architects, planners and heritage bodies, schoolchildren and teachers, students and scholars. Its worldwide impact is attested by the organisers of related Canadian and South African websites, as well as by feedback from international users and a current hit rate of more than 3.8 million per year.
Robert Lorimer and his work: the gatehouse at Earlshall, Fife, 1900
The focus of the research in question has been to establish how far the architectural and urban culture of Scotland before the Union in 1707 was `European' and the consequences for Scotland's architecture after 1707 within the UK, including the issue of its assimilation with that of the rest of Britain. Initially the work, beginning in the later 1990s, concentrated on particular Scottish cities, notably Dundee and Edinburgh, more recently widening to include a large sample of Scotland's other smaller towns. The impact of what is a major body of diverse but inter-related research (at the heart of which are buildings and the built environment) is demonstrated at several levels, through local dissemination and community engagement, through to changing public discourse at national level about much of Scotland's architectural heritage and its implications for today. This has been achieved through the role of the lead researcher (Charles McKean) in major advisory bodies, as chairman of Edinburgh World Heritage Trust (2006-2012) to the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland, and on the Scottish Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund (Section 5: 1,2,3,4,5 and 8).
Professor Dauvit Broun has shaped the History curriculum for Scotland's schools through his advisory role in the development of the `Curriculum for Excellence', a new national framework that has reinvented Scottish education for ages 3-18. He has set the pace nationally for teacher-academic collaboration through his activities with the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE); Scottish History Society; Scottish Association of Teachers of History; the schools Inspectorate; and the History and Social Studies officers in Scotland's curricular and assessment bodies, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland. Through his leadership, a University of Glasgow (UoG) team has established large-scale, systematic knowledge transfer to secondary school teachers and learners across Scotland through tailored events and web resources. The Subject Specialist for History in HM Inspector of Education states: `Professor Broun has been at the forefront of academics extending the reach of universities into school education.'