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Public understanding of the classical world has been informed and enhanced through new editions of the prestigious and internationally acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD) and its spin-off publications. These key reference items, which have sold in high numbers and been translated into several languages, are available in specialist, university, college and public libraries worldwide, thereby benefitting a wide range of users, including the general public, students, school pupils, and fellow professionals.
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.
Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC) is a historical dictionary similar to the Oxford English Dictionary, and is the acknowledged authority on the spelling, derivation and meaning of Welsh words. Apart from its scholarly uses, it is used in all areas of the Welsh public sphere, providing the lexical information necessary to produce terminology for bilingual documentation in fields such as government, education, health, law and business. GPC has always had a network of voluntary readers and informants, and uses both old and new media to seek examples of contemporary usage and to promote public interest in the language. A concise version of the dictionary has been freely available online since 2003, and a full version will be launched in 2014.
Professor Nicholas Cronk, has in collaboration with others, created an app which is an enhanced edition of Voltaire's Candide, freely available, for use on tablets. Candide is a timeless and universal text with perennial appeal, and this digital edition renders it accessible to a wide variety of new readers. Cronk has been encouraging engagement with Voltaire's texts through more traditional channels but this latest innovation has won new readers for Voltaire, especially among a young generation often more familiar with new media than with traditional books. The app, with its dual level of annotations, illustrations, manuscript images, commentaries, and the Polyadès recording, has been well received by a wide range of readers, and functions in a curatorial capacity to preserve an important work of French classical literary heritage in a new, sustainable format. The Candide app represents a revolutionary tool for both independent learning, and also for classroom teaching.
Editorial and biographical research on the work of Virginia Woolf, carried out primarily by Susan Sellers, fed directly into the composition of Vanessa and Virginia, a novel by Sellers about Woolf's relationship with her sister. In 2008 Vanessa and Virginia was published by a small independent publisher set up in 2006 in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. It became the press's most commercially successful publication and ensured its early economic viability. The novel was subsequently published in North America and translated into more than a dozen languages. It was also turned into a successful, inter-nationally-staged play. This case study therefore claims several types of impact: (1) exporting the cultural heritage of the UK and stimulating international public interest in Woolf; (2) generating economic prosperity for a small entrepreneurial business in a remote part of Scotland, and for the creative industries (theatre and international publishing) more widely; (3) inspiring and facilitating the work of other cultural practitioners; (4) enriching cultural life in the UK and abroad. The users of this research are: the directors of an independent publishing company; translators and international publishing houses; the director, producer and actors of a touring theatre company; the reading and theatre-going public.
The Penguin Archive Project, funded by a major grant from the AHRC [7], produced an online catalogue of the Penguin Collection at the University of Bristol Library (launched in 2011). Penguin Books transformed the range and greatly extended the availability of books to a general readership in the twentieth century. The Penguin Archive located at the University of Bristol can therefore be conceived of as a record of the democratisation of reading in the UK in the twentieth century. As a result of the Penguin Archive Project impact has been realised in three main areas: improving access to the Penguin Archive and making it easier to use for a variety of non-academic users; raising awareness and understanding of the significance of the archive and the rich cultural heritage of Penguin books through public engagement and media activities including a major international conference in 2010; developing collaborative links with Penguin and contributing to their publishing practice. As a result, researchers, editors, authors, publishers and other users such as the Penguin Collectors Society now have access to this major resource.
Research on the Shahnama and the Cambridge `Shahnama Project' have stood at the head of a wider effort to promote a better understanding of Persian culture in Britain and the West, especially in view of the current negative image of Iran and its clerical regime. The impact has been (1) to enhance heritage activity in Iranian diaspora communities in the UK and elsewhere; (2) create a focus and catalyst for raising awareness amongst the wider British public of Persian culture and history, and of past relations between Britain and Iran; and (3) inspire and support new forms of artistic expression.
Papyrological research since 1993 by Oxford scholars has led to important new discoveries that have promoted increased public understanding and discussion of ancient literature and history. Research on documentary papyri has led to greater awareness of daily life in Oxyrhynchus, a Graeco-Roman provincial capital in central Egypt. The publication and translation of a new poem by Sappho has led to its inclusion in new translations of Sappho and ancient Greek lyric by leading publishers. Major Digital Humanities projects, Oxyrhynchus Online and Ancient Lives, have made the Oxyrhynchus papyri available to the public through the use of a web interface. Mass participation facilitated by the project has received wide publicity for increasing the engagement of the public with the methods and materials of scientific research. The website has had a major pedagogical impact through its use in schools.
Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) was one of post-war Germany's leading writers and public intellectuals. The Edition of Böll's complete works, prepared by a seven-strong international research team which included Finlay, has had significant impact across a number of areas, including commercial publishing (spin-off publications, marketing opportunities); digital humanities (software and platform development for large-scale critical editions, significantly changing working practices); culture and heritage (in particular in the city of Cologne); the media and the public sphere (public debate on the writer's legacy and the Heinrich-Böll foundation's cultural programme in 30 countries).
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) is quoted and used in both schools and colleges across the world and read by people without any direct academic connection to the subject: widening access to, interest in, and understanding of Sumerian literature. Sumerian literature is widely known as one of the oldest literatures in the world, inspiring countless studies of world literature and history of religion. The ETCSL has made the bulk of canonical Sumerian literature (c. 400 compositions) available in prose translations and the original Sumerian to both specialists and informal learners for more than a decade.