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McNay's work is at the boundaries between HEIs and their environment: policy analysis, particularly of Access and, here, Research Quality Assessment, and the impact on internal strategies; and organisational analysis and the way internal cultures and processes are conditioned by external influences. His conceptual model of cultures is used by professionals worldwide to evaluate and improve leadership and management and introduce change. RAE impact analysis has influenced policy (eg on the teaching /research nexus) in the UK and elsewhere) and staff behaviour. It was a factor leading to adjustment of later exercises towards profiling, consistency of criteria and impact
This impact case study shows how work by members of the Violence Research Centre (VRC, director Professor Manuel Eisner) at the Institute of Criminology has contributed to policy change related to violence prevention in European countries, and the implementation of new violence prevention strategies at the levels of local and national governments. This impact is based on a stream of research by members of the VRC on the causes and the prevention of all manifestations of interpersonal violence, which is dedicated to generating practically useful knowledge.
Professor Ian Loader's research on the concept of `penal moderation' shaped the final report of the Commission on English Prisons Today and helped to inform the policy arguments of the UK's leading penal reform charity — the Howard League for Penal Reform. These arguments, in turn, influenced the criminal justice agenda of the Coalition Government. Loader's research on the politicization of crime and justice was also influential on the final report of the Justice Select Committee of the House of Commons on `Justice Reinvestment' (an initiative which seeks to create local financial incentives to invest in community penalties). Loader's research shaped the views of the Committee on how to build a political consensus for alternatives to imprisonment.
Research undertaken by Armitage and Hirschfield and colleagues from the Applied Criminology Centre (ACC) has made a significant contribution to crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED). Emerging from a wider programme of study in the field of environmental criminology, research completed at the University of Huddersfield since 2004 into `designing out' crime has been incorporated into national and local planning policy and procedures and has influenced international urban planning. This research has underpinned the UK Association of Chief Police Officers' (ACPO) success in extending the designing out crime initiative, Secured By Design (SBD), to 350,000 homes, and in reducing burglary rates by more than half in housing designed to this standard.
Limitations in public access to water environments for recreation are a longstanding source of stakeholder conflict in which previous policy initiatives have been ineffective. Our research has demonstrated how recreational access to inland waters can be increased through stakeholder capacity building and partnership working. In England and Wales the research led to changes in policy decisions for access to water, revised planning policy guidance, improved recreational access, the creation of 102 new jobs, and the modification of management practices by private and public bodies. In Europe the research has shaped new approaches for the management of small waterways in 11 countries.
The Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) has undertaken research providing a sustained contribution to understanding beneficiary-focused EU and UK rural development (RD) policies. This used novel, context-sensitive and mixed-method evaluation techniques to capture complex, systemic impacts and diagnose causal linkages between design and delivery, and policy performance. In so doing it has generated direct impacts in improved RD policy making and evaluation. The research has influenced restructuring in EU policy frameworks for RD and changed England's upland policy. By increasing policymakers' understanding of farm-level behaviours and responses to agri-environmental policy goals, CCRI's research has stimulated better-communicated and integrated advisory approaches.
UEL's International Centre for the Study of the Mixed Economy of Childcare (ICMEC) researches service costs and equity risks associated with the marketisation and privatisation of early childhood education and care (ECEC). Its interdisciplinary research, which is frequently cited in national and international policy documents, has contributed to policy debate within the European Union, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and other supra-national bodies, and informed the UK Government's development of ECEC and child poverty policies.
Brookman's research has produced new insights into the nature and circumstances of homicide and homicide investigation. The first four pages on the Murder Investigation Manual, commonly viewed as the definitive guide on homicide investigation in Britain, are based on Brookman's research on the characteristics of homicide. The directives of the International Association of Chiefs of Police based in the United States (US) devote one or their top ten directives to Brookman's proposals on broadening outcome assessments. The Prince George's County Police Department in the US is currently considering implementing Brookman's proposals to include Family Liaison Officers as part of their process of homicide investigation.
As a direct result of methodological research led by Professor Ray Pawson at Leeds, `realist evaluation' has provided a new lens through which to assess and develop social programmes. It has critically changed the apparatus of evidenced-based policy and the way in which policy research is commissioned and utilised. Through advisory work, training package provision, partnership-research and professional exchange, this `realist' perspective has formed a new standard in social programme evaluation, and is used by commissioners in the UK and internationally to frame their interventions across policy domains, including education, environment, criminal justice, and health and social care.
Research on the management and implementation of EU Cohesion policy has informed the legislative proposals made in 2011 by the European Commission for the reform of Cohesion policy. It has also influenced some organisational changes within the Commission introduced in early 2013. EU Cohesion policy is the second largest area of expenditure in the EU budget, currently worth c. €347bn for the 2007-13 period, and provides funding for regional socio-economic development programmes in all EU Member States. The legislative proposals influenced by the Strathclyde research affect every national, regional and local authority in the EU benefiting from EU Structural and Cohesion Funds.