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Professor John Tomlinson produces world-leading research on the cultural dimensions of the globalization process. His research findings influence policy at an international level, shape professional and public understanding of the consequences of globalization and encourage public debate about international cooperation. Tomlinson has acted as a consultant to national and international bodies including UNESCO and the BBVA Foundation (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) in Madrid, influencing their thinking, policies and practices. He has shaped cultural practitioners' understanding of the cultural consequences of globalization through presentations to cultural bodies such as Impakt Arts Festival Utrecht and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
University of Manchester (UoM) sociologists have responded to escalating policy interest in the cultural and creative industries as generators of social and economic value; developing a more complex analysis of the significance of these sectors for understanding social inequality. Through a distinctive form of `cultural class analysis' (CCA), three key impacts are generated. Firstly, co-producing the BBC `Great British Class Survey' (GBCS) as a major public sociology intervention on understandings of `class'. Secondly, influencing new market research frameworks. Thirdly, applying CCA within the cultural sector, challenging policy understandings of how class inequalities are bound up with cultural participation. In a period of austerity and sharply increasing social, cultural and economic inequality, these impacts have successfully provoked renewed media and public engagement with issues of class division.
The University of Southampton has carried out a programme of research into transnational networks of migrants, especially musicians from African countries, and multicultural neighbourhoods across Europe. This has resulted in a series of popular multi-national arts events in Africa and Europe, involving artists numbering in the hundreds and audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These events have generated new independent cultural projects, leading to economic benefit for organisers and participants and to greater public awareness of migrant and mixed community issues.
Cultural studies at Middlesex has often exemplified the New Left tradition that played an important role in founding the discipline. It sees cultural research as part of a broad continuum informing and shaping political debate, policymaking and civic education. Facilitated by a series of e-publications, public events and other activities, many associated with the journal Soundings, and working with organisations such as the Guardian, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and the Labour Party, this research has had a demonstrable impact on issues of intergenerational politics, ethical consumption and the role of identity in new political formations. Key beneficiaries are charities, NGOs, political parties, think tanks and members of the general public.
Interdisciplinary research at Manchester Metropolitan University on transgender law, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) politics, polyamory, and bisexuality has had a direct role in transforming legal and professional practice, and in improving the treatment of LGBT people within Europe and globally. Specifically, this research has advanced health care, public policy, and the legal status of transgender people throughout Europe and worldwide through research with activist, national and supra-national governmental bodies. Research with LGBT/polyamory communities has benefitted physicians, activists and artists in the LGBT rights struggles in the UK, and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
Research undertaken by Professor John Holden of City University London on cultural diplomacy and cultural value has had a direct impact on cultural policy-makers both nationally and internationally. In the UK it has impacted specifically on the funding of cultural diplomacy activity and the operations of Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Internationally advice has been sought by politicians and cultural administrators around the world including the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Culture in New Zealand, Alberta's Minister of Culture and the Chairs of the main cultural organisations in Hong Kong. Through this, Holden has: (i) provided expert advice to governmental, third sector and private organisations in relation to cultural policy; (ii) influenced directly the thinking of senior government ministers in relation to arts and culture; (iii) proposed new ways of thinking about the methods and mechanisms by which culture and creative practice are supported through the distribution of public funds; (iv) contributed to the enhancement of frameworks supporting the creative industries, which in turn has aided economic prosperity for a range of individuals and organisations; and (v) helped creative industry professionals and those who support them to adapt to changing cultural values.
Rhythm Changes is Europe's largest ever jazz research project to date, examining the inherited traditions and practices of European jazz cultures, engaging audiences, performers, the creative industries and arts agencies in the collection, interpretation and sharing of cultural experiences, resources and data, demonstrating the following impact:
(a) contributing to public debate on the various issues relating to pornography;
(b) advising policy makers about pornography, its forms, meanings and consumption;
(c) raising awareness and understanding of pornography among practicing youth, and sexual health, professionals through the organization of various public events;
(d) advising members of the legal profession in relation to pending prosecutions of materials seized under the Obscene Publications Act and provisions within the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act;
(e) informing Defence actions in relation to those prosecutions;
(f) giving expert evidence to the Crown Court in three prosecutions and informing the decisions of the Jury.
`Social Interpretation' is focused on developing new systems to enable the interpretation, discussion, collection and sharing of cultural experiences with, and between, museum visitors, demonstrating the following impact:
Through a range of media and educational activities, Gordon Lynch has developed public understanding of the importance of morally-charged visions of the sacred and the profane for contemporary society. In his work, the sacred refers not necessarily to traditional forms of religious belief, but to whatever people collectively experience as unquestionable moral realities, whose profanation evokes reactions of outrage, disgust and the search for restitution and renewed moral solidarity. In articles for newspapers, blogs for influential websites, and on-line films for use in secondary schools, he has introduced public audiences to this way of thinking about the sacred and shown its relevance for making sense of contemporary cases involving strong public moral emotion. These have ranged from the UK phone-hacking scandal to public responses to the mass murders committed by Anders Behring Brievik. His work has been engaged with by a global audience of at least 250,000-300,000 people, and has enabled public audiences both to identify sacred passions in the modern world and to adopt a more self-critical attitude towards instinctive moral reactions.