Log in
Research carried out at the Centre for Forensic Linguistics (CFL) at Aston has achieved the following significant impacts:
The impact claimed is the international uptake and successful commercialization (as www.carmtraining.org) across public, private and third-sector organizations, of a pioneering method for communication skills training called the `Conversation Analytic Role-play Method' (CARM). CARM's development was funded by the ESRC knowledge-exchange scheme and is based on research conducted at Loughborough University. It has reach and significance in attitude change in training culture: 130+ workshops have taken place at 60+ organizations since 2008. CARM's impact on training practice is evidenced by its accreditation by the College of Mediators for the Continuing Professional Development of mediators. CARM won Loughborough's Social-Enterprise Award (2013).
This research by Professor Yaron Matras has impacted on the way local services communicate with minority populations by encouraging them to re-assess language needs. It has had its effects in the fields of health and welfare, education, and policy making in relation public services. In particular it has demonstrated the need to base language policy on reliable mechanisms of data collection and the assessment of such data. One of the key outcomes was the establishment of the world's largest online language archive, Multilingual Manchester. The research also highlighted the existence of relatively unknown languages such as Kurdish and Romani in Manchester. It has also helped explain communication patterns among people who speak related dialects, such as immigrants from different Arabic-speaking countries, and has shed new light on the way in which people who are multilingual make use of their languages.
The death of Ian Tomlinson during the 2009 G20 summit protests in London led to a crisis in British Public Order Policing. Gorringe and Rosie drew on their ethnographic work on policing before, during and after a number of protest events in the UK to contribute to ongoing public debates and devise ways to minimise the risk of violence in police-protestor interactions. They have been interviewed by, or their research has been reported in, newspapers, radio or TV in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Greece, India, Romania and the UK. They have achieved impact on police thinking and practices by:
Professor David Crystal's world-leading research on language policy, diversity and usage, conducted at Bangor since 2000, has led to a transformation in terms of public and political attitudes, both nationally and internationally, towards the nature and use of language in public and private discourse. In particular, the research has led, since 2008, to an increased awareness of linguistic diversity, changes to governmental policies on language, and the development of the world's first targeted online advertising technology, which today indexes billions of impressions across 11 languages to provide real-time data services in the emerging online advertising world.
Research conducted at BEAA has made a significant contribution to the conservation of grassland fungi (notably waxcap fungi) through changes to policy decisions as they related to fungal conservation, including the provision of specialist advice that has led to the notification of two SSSIs (sites of special scientific interest) and to changes in SSSI notification guidelines. BEAA research has also enhanced public understanding and awareness of fungal conservation through `citizen science' activities, public lectures, radio programmes, film productions such as Disneynature's Chimpanzee, as well as articles in newspapers and widely-read magazines. These wider achievements are based on underpinning science to address survey methodologies, taxonomic issues and the elucidation of the basic biology of grassland fungi, all of which are essential for effective conservation strategies.
Members of Loughborough University's Helpline Research Unit (LUHRU) have been researching, evaluating and advising on helpline services since 2000. LUHRU research on the exchange of talk between callers and call-takers on telephone helplines has had a significant impact on helpline training and quality control, benefitting helpline organisations, call-takers, and users. The impact has been realised through a) engagement activities that have increased understanding of helpline interactions amongst managers and call-takers, b) training and development activities that have changed call-takers' practices, and c) consultation and evaluations that have changed organisational policy and practice.
The Database of Mid-Victorian Illustration (DMVI, www.dmvi.cardiff.ac.uk) used research and technological innovation to bring illustrations of Victorian culture to multiple users. Before DMVI, illustrations accompanying nineteenth-century literary texts were largely forgotten, and there was no structured way of searching for them as images. Despite their cultural importance, illustrations are rarely reproduced in modern editions, and mass digitisation projects omit them or describe them inadequately for independent retrieval. DMVI's bespoke software tools harnessed literary research in a multifaceted mark-up system, to create a tagged 'image bank'. Its content and searchability have made it the resource of choice for designers, publishers, broadcasters, film-makers, and heritage organisations worldwide when presenting images of nineteenth-century life.
As a writer of popular (linguistic) science, and as the subject of a documentary film on his life and work, Professor Dan Everett's research on Amazonian languages like Pirahã has widely influenced popular understanding and debate about the relations between language, mind and culture. The spectacular, and sometimes controversial, conclusions of his fieldwork, theoretical and popular writings challenge the claim that all human beings are endowed with an innate language faculty and challenge the ways in which cultural values are constructed.
Platinum Group Elements (PGE) are critical strategic metals because of their unrivalled applications in catalysts, fuel cells and electronics and cancer therapies. Research and analytical methods developed at Cardiff have impacted on exploration for new PGE deposits, and more efficient processing of PGE ores by international mining companies. A key milestone between 2009 and 2012 was the discovery of a 3 billion year old giant impact crater in West Greenland. This discovery is of major economic significance because all craters previously found in this size class are associated with multi-billion dollar mineral and/or hydrocarbon resources. It led to an intellectual property transaction worth CDN$ 2.1 million and discovery of nickel and PGE deposits in Greenland by North American Nickel Incorporated.