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A participatory public artwork commissioned as a part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, The Boat Project's impact reaches to a national audience of 440,698 while a global audience of many millions encountered the work via print and broadcast media. Outreach activity engaged over 100 schools while some thirty public artworks were commissioned in response to the project, underlining its impact on local authority cultural provision and the professional fields of contemporary performance, theatre and public art. The project created 22 paid positions, 80 volunteer positions and an on-going commercial venture.
Arts for Health is a global leader in the research and development of arts and health. In 2003, it secured HM Treasury funding to research the impact of the arts on health and well-being. The Invest to Save: Arts in Health (ISP) research aimed to strengthen the capacity of the north-west regions' arts/health community, building the evidence base around the effectiveness of creativity, culture and the arts on health outcomes. The research evidenced reduced levels of stress, anxiety and depression and increased levels of eudemonic (active) well-being in those engaging with the arts, and has national and international policy dimensions.
The significance of illumination for the development of innovative place-making strategies designed to enhance convivial life in the city, enable better communal heritage preservation and augment urban economic capacity has been acutely underestimated. The research showcased here is interested in discovering new concepts and methodologies for the understanding, utilisation and evaluation of illumination as both a facilitator and intrinsic expression of communal life in both the city and beyond. The research has initiated a vibrant knowledge exchange between academics, professionals and municipal authorities leading to the establishment of an increasingly international network focused on the politics, aesthetics, communal benefits and economic potential of effective urban place-making through strategic illumination. The research has also impacted on the tourism strategies of coastal towns and resorts, and on heritage cultivation through the provision of expert advice. Among both specialist stakeholders and the wider public the research has raised awareness of illumination as a place-making strategy, as well as a matter of class and taste. The research has also rehabilitated aspects of popular culture by reappraising the role of the vernacular in municipal event planning and general policy-making discourse.
Dr Tomlin has applied the findings of her theoretical research to the rehearsal room both by working dramaturgically with companies such as Point Blank, Tin Box, Nodding Dog, Little Earthquake and Shooting Fish and through her own creative practice as playwright in collaboration with other professional artists. Her research has helped to transform the processes of devising work, and has disseminated new ways of working to the artists involved, and, through their subsequent work, to their audiences in turn.
This impact is demonstrated here through a site-specific production to which Dr Tomlin contributed in 2012, in which she developed new forms of creative practice which influenced the working processes and artistic methodologies of professional artists and enabled them to deliver innovative and politically relevant theatre to the general public. The primary impact benefitted the companies and professional artists with whom she collaborated; the secondary impact benefitted audiences of the performances, which numbered approximately 450 across 5 intimate venues throughout the UK.
This impact is not merely a one-way dissemination of theoretical analysis to a receptive body of professional artists, but a practice-based research process undertaken in collaboration with the professional artists in question, thus forming a feedback loop: research — impact/application to practice — further research and experimentation — impact/application to practice. Practice-based research, in this sense, conducts both research and impact activity simultaneously.
For this case study our impacts include high levels of community engagement, innovative pedagogy, engagement with large and broad audiences (in real life and via an array of broadcast and print media), prize winning activities and quality outputs and publications. Our approach is trans-disciplinary, progressive and experimental and impacts in a local, national and global context. This case study refers to the group of researchers at Leeds Metropolitan University whose work is practice-based, practice-led and often collaborative. This type of innovative and progressive research has characterised the subject at the University since the establishment of Leeds Polytechnic in 1970.
Research carried out by Manchester Metropolitan University into the management of town and city centres has directly led to key changes in policy and practice - in particular, the acceptance and adoption of new partnership approaches to town and city change now supported by the Departments of Business Innovation and Skills, and Communities and Local Government. The research has also impacted on professional practice internationally, through the development of a comprehensive set of principles, standards and approaches disseminated through the Institute of Place Management and aimed at empowering communities to better manage town centres for the benefit of the local community.
The University for the Creative Arts has a longstanding commitment to the history, practice, and theory of craft. The research of the Crafts Study Centre (CSC) and Anglo-Japanese Textile Research Centre (AJTRC) has long championed the work of craft practitioners in order to find new ways of thinking through creative practice. This curatorial work, public facing in nature, has contributed to the personal, professional and creative development of a range of craft practitioners by offering an enquiry-led platform for the exploration of craft as profession. Though this research has brought numerous benefits to a wide range of people and organisations, this case study explains specific qualitative and quantitative benefits brought to a number of craft practitioners by this work.
This creative/critical collaboration sought to reclaim Spenser's The Faerie Queene for today's world, investigating how to remake this religious poem and national epic for diverse audiences and users, and exploring its potential to revivify religion and society, through artistic works and new liturgies. Impact beyond the academy was always at the conceptual heart of the project. Bringing together members of different faith groups, school communities, and cultural practitioners (musicians, puppeteers, poets), it engaged them in debate and sought to produce new cultural forms that would not only contribute to cultural life but affect civil society and public discourse. An unforeseen if powerful impact was a national debate and controversy over deployments of the figure of St George.