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This case study presents the impact of research undertaken by Professor Clare Midgley that places nineteenth-century British women's activism within its imperial and global contexts. Impact has been achieved through advisory roles and public engagement activities with two community groups involved in projects to commemorate women, and a consultancy role with English Heritage. As a result, Midgley's research has both played a crucial role in initiating and shaping local projects to commemorate pioneering British feminists and abolitionists of local, national and global significance, whilst also influencing national policy on preserving and presenting historic sites associated with women's history.
Professor Catherine Hall and her team have instigated a high-profile public debate about British slave-ownership and its long-term influence on British society, economy, politics and culture. The team's research results have been shared with a wide audience through an intense programme of public engagement, including a number of exhibitions, and extensive media coverage in the UK and abroad, as well as indirectly through an acclaimed work of popular fiction. Above all, their research has been made publicly available via an online Encyclopaedia of British Slave-ownership which has encouraged non-academic users to pursue their own research and make active contributions to the project.
Between 2006 and 2010 Brian Kelly directed a major research project on US slave emancipation involving strategic collaborations with civil society, public discourse and non-HE curriculum design partners in the United States. Pursuing an expansive approach to broad dissemination on the web, in print and through a series of well-staged conferences and educators' workshops, this project has engaged hundreds of teachers, heritage and cultural workers, and curriculum experts in secondary education. Drawing these diverse constituencies into the collaborative production of high-quality, web-based teaching resources, project partners have played a leading role in reshaping history pedagogy on a critical topic as the US enters a long run of public commemorations marking the Civil War and its aftermath.
Two of the UOA's research outputs — the Slave Voyages website (2008) and the Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (2010) — not only transformed knowledge and understanding of the movements of enslaved Africans, but also generated a wealth of documentary, visual and statistical material relating to this human trafficking business, c.1500-1867. These research findings are disseminated through media as diverse as searchable webpages, educational packs, artistic exhibitions, TV features, newspaper reports and theatre performances. The far-reaching impact of the research benefits schoolchildren, policy-makers, theatre-goers, arts communities and the general public across the globe.
As a result of his research and publications on American history, Professor David Reynolds was invited by the Controller of BBC Radio 4 to research, write and present a series of 90 programmes, each 15 minutes in length, on the history of America. These were broadcast in three segments over a total of eighteen weeks in 2008-9. The series had a dedicated website and it remains available as a set of BBC CDs.
The series won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, 2008, for the Best New Programme or Programme Series. It also received a SONY Radio Academy Award Nomination, 2009, for the Speech Award, and it was short-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2010.
The impact of Reynolds' work was demonstrated by the BBC's decision to re-broadcast ten programmes about the American Civil War in April 2011 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of its outbreak in 1861. These were also re-issued separately as BBC CDs and as a boxed set of three.
Sugar, Slavery and Society engages public audiences in some of the most enduring issues in American history. Based on extensive international collaboration with educators and publicists, the project deepens public understanding of slavery and emancipation. More specifically, it helps to shape how the controversial issues of slavery and emancipation are taught in secondary schools and represented by the heritage industry. In partnership with health-care providers, the project also advances public engagement with historical questions of public health. The project has a strong online presence that further facilitates public engagement with the ethical and historical issues it raises.
Lincoln's research in 21st century literature and publishing has impacted upon local, national and global audiences. 21st century literature is unique in that: 1) opinion over which texts are considered to be the most valuable has not yet been firmly formed; and 2) critical sources on 21st century texts are sparse and often publicly inaccessible.
Lincoln's research into this area has had a direct, demonstrable influence on a BIS committee recommendation for government policy on open access in the UK and on top-level academic and government thinkers in Europe and Japan. Lincoln's open access publications, Alluvium and Orbit, break down the barriers between the public and academia to enhance the discussions of contemporary writing that are hosted at the university. Through discussions at live readings and performances and on internet channels, public audiences are invited to experience contemporary writing first-hand, and to participate in easily accessible online discussions about contemporary literature with internationally-leading scholars. Lincoln's strong research in this field — widely disseminated through high-profile conferences, a research group, a website, social media channels and two leading open access online journals - has been centred around creating a dialogue with the public, with a specific focus on schools and young people. The social and educational impact includes education about contemporary writers and their writing, the involvement of the public in forging opinion about what is valuable in 21st century literature, and influencing school teachers in their teaching practices
This case study concerns advances in public understanding of Wales's involvement with the Atlantic slave system between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries associated with the research of Chris Evans. The research has enhanced cultural capital within Wales (and more widely) on this issue, expanded the range and quality of evidence available for public debate, and influenced the memorialisation of Atlantic slavery within Wales.
This study describes the public and cultural impact of research undertaken by Prof Suzanne Schwarz upon ongoing processes of national recovery in post-conflict Sierra Leone. It describes its impact on public policy in relation to the preservation of national heritage and, in particular, to the conservation and digitisation of internationally-renowned archival collections documenting formation of the world's first post-slave society. Schwarz played a pivotal role in the training of archival staff in Sierra Leone and, through her work with Paul E. Lovejoy (Distinguished Research Professor and Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History, York University, Toronto), achieved long-term public access, in Sierra Leone, to rare and valuable evidence located in Britain, America and Canada. Schwarz's and Lovejoy's international conference in Freetown in 2012 was the first major gathering of historians from around the world since the civil war. Streamed live on national television and radio and attended by government officials and members of the public, it placed the modern history of Sierra Leone in historical perspective, and contributed to processes of truth and reconciliation at the heart of furthering domestic and international understanding.
Universities UK named Bales' work as one of `100 Discoveries in UK Universities that have Changed the World.' Bales, they said, `brought about a new awareness, new laws and new programmes for the liberation and rehabilitation of slaves around the world.' That recognition noted his illumination of modern slavery. Since coming to Hull in 2007, Bales' research has focussed on analysing and challenging contemporary slavery, an impact seen in an expanding global anti-slavery movement, new laws, and new research approaches. It is work based largely on his work in three key areas: conceptual/empirical tools; policies and legislation; and corporate supply chain responsibility.