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The pedagogical workshops conducted in Palestine in 2012-13 on History, Culture and Memory as Sites of Life-long Learning in Palestine (LLIP) attracted teachers, civil servants and local government employees, members of cultural centres and NGOs. The project contributed to co-learning experience and a dialogue across cultures. Beneficiaries shared new ideas on critical pedagogies. The local and international partners explored how new research on "social memory from below" and oral memory methodologies can be applied to Palestinian pedagogy. The European partners gained deeper insights into the complex issues and realities confronting the Palestinian institutions. The new pedagogical material recorded at the workshops was circulated through the local media and placed on Palestinian websites in both Arabic and English. As a result of the success of the project, Nur Masalha, Professor of Religion and Politics and Director of the Centre for Religion and History at St Mary's, was consulted by the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education and the Palestinian Quality Assurance Commission (in Ramallah) in May-June 2013 on the introduction of new MA programmes at Palestinian universities and on issues of teaching history in Palestinian schools.
Recent decades have witnessed a rapid decline in youth participation in UK electoral politics, in terms of both voting and party membership. Many authors and political commentators view this situation as marking a crisis in British democracy. Sloam's research and his collaboration with user groups have addressed this important issue and strengthened efforts to engage young people in politics, broadly conceived. In particular, his work has highlighted the growing `participation gaps' between rich and poor young people in the UK and between young people in the UK and across the European Union. Sloam's work on teaching and learning within political science, on citizenship education and on the social role of higher education has informed policy and practice within the educational sector. His research on young people's political participation in British democracy has advanced knowledge about the nature of young people's politics, helping policy-makers form strategy, approaches and indices to create better engagement with the next generation of citizens.
Outcomes of the research conducted at the University of Edinburgh (2001 to 2007) that have had the most far-reaching impact are a strong conceptualisation of the whole learning environment (including curricula, teaching, learning support, and assessment and feedback) and its influence on the quality of undergraduates' learning. What gave these outcomes added resonance was a concern for disciplinary distinctiveness as well as more generic features; an alertness to the pervasive implications for day-to-day teaching-learning practices of mass 21st-century higher education; and a focus on enhancing as well as evaluating the student experience.
The reach of the impact extends to university teachers, middle and senior academic managers, local and national bodies with responsibilities for surveying quality and standards and, albeit less directly, students. Staff in at least 21 universities in 12 countries have used the Experiences of Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (ETLQ). The National Student Survey questionnaire was influenced by the ETLQ, and has continuing UK-wide impact on teaching through students' retrospective ratings of their experience. Project outputs were directed towards teaching staff through workshops, publications and invited presentations, followed by detailed advice on assessment and feedback of coursework.
Research on `Building the Antiracist University', led by Professor Ian Law at Leeds since 2001, provided resources for organisational change that have had a continuing and developing impact since 2008. This case study shows how resources developed from research findings have changed professional practice, shaped organisational policies and wider policy debate, thereby challenging established norms, modes of thought and practices. The dissemination of an anti-racist `toolkit' has helped managers in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to develop organisational responses to racial and ethnic diversity on campus. The reach of this approach has developed, since 2008, beyond its original focus on higher education and into new policy domains, as well as internationally. Thus, the evidence illustrates a process of accumulating impact on other sectors of public policy and in stimulating debate about the renewal of anti-racist strategies by the Council of Europe and the European Commission. The theoretical frameworks, substantive findings and outputs of research carried out at Leeds have stimulated attention to institutional racism and the organisational change, using the toolkit approach.
Student as Producer connects academic teaching, undergraduate research and student engagement at the level of curriculum design and practice within HE institutions, which has in turn affected national HE teaching agencies approach to developing practice. The impact includes:
Innovative interdisciplinary research undertaken in the areas of intersectionality, diversity, and widening participation at the University of Hull contributed first to the development of a project funded by the European Union, the EU-ALFA III funded project `Development of Policies to Promote Widening Participation and Equal Opportunities in Higher Education Institutions in Latin America' (MISEAL). This project involves a consortium of 16 international institutions (4 EU universities and 12 universities in Latin America). Second, within MISEAL, research undertaken at Hull has led to the development and use of intersectional statistical tools for the measurement of inequality in the 12 Latin American partner HE institutions, of protocols for the analysis of their regulations regarding widening participation and equal opportunities and of guidelines for the organization of workshops (for staff and students) to raise awareness about inequality. MISEAL has also organised a number of reach-out activities, promoted collaboration with governmental organisation and created a network of experts in this area. The relevant impact has been primarily on public services and policy making (especially in the areas of widening participation and equal opportunities) and on education (at an international level and especially in the area of curriculum development and knowledge transfer). The primary beneficiaries have been policy makers including legal professionals and managers who are involved with the development of legal frameworks for widening participation and equal opportunities in Latin American HE institutions as well as academics and students internationally and groups concerned with curriculum development in HE institutions in Latin America.
Working with colleagues from across Europe, CfSL examined the differences between European countries in the education and professional recognition of Medical Physics Experts (MPEs), and the challenges associated with cross-border harmonisation. The MPE project has finalised recommendations on the education and deployment of MPEs for the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy and Transport. The results of the project are being taken forward in an FP7 coordination project (see below) to develop a pilot training programme for MPEs in Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology. The main user groups who benefit from this research predominantly include hospitals and clinics, medical equipment manufacturers, regulating bodies, with the patient being the ultimate beneficiary.
Irit Rogoff has shaped the emergence of an `educational turn' in the arts and humanities, arguing that contemporary artwork, together with its institutions and social platforms, transforms education practices in non-academic arenas such as museums, theatres, bookshops, art academies, and social and political occupations. This work started at the moment in which both the Bologna accord and neo-liberal impacts on education began pulling towards the professionalisation and homogenisation of Higher Education culture. All of the projects elaborated within this case study have aimed to expand the understanding of how cultural actors become educational stakeholders.
Rogoff's theoretical and curatorial research has taken diverse forms including scholarly publications, exhibitions and social forums, and she has brought these issues to audiences from the arts and public organisations beyond the university sector through advisory roles, public speaking, and social organising. Following numerous publications, exhibitions, and events, she founded freethought, an experimental platform for pedagogy, research and production. Launched in 2012 at the Austrian arts festival, Steirischer Herbst, freethought has subsequently developed a core project on `infrastructure' launched at Berlin's House of World Cultures in 2013. Her published research, exhibitions, and public forums have been widely influential in debates on education in the public sphere, as evidenced for example by her involvement as a funded partner in the establishment of a freethought laboratory in South Korea's new Asia Cultural Complex.
This case study focuses on the impact of research undertaken within the European Research Centre (ERC) and the Centre for the Study of International Governance at Loughborough University between 1993 and 2009, primarily by Professor Linda Hantrais (1993-2008 and now Emeritus). The impact of the research has been created through high quality cross-national socio-demographic analysis which has underpinned policy formation and delivery at the European and national levels, with particular reference to social policy, citizenship and family policy. It has had a substantial further impact by generating advances in international comparative research methods and training.
Over a decade's research by Introna and Hayes has investigated the biases inherent in automated systems. As part of this research they showed that the design and use of plagiarism detection systems (PDS), used by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) worldwide, may be unfair due to their embedded values and assumptions. A series of reports, workshops and supporting resources, using these insights, have transformed writing support and teaching practices at no less than 32 HEIs nationally and internationally, affecting lecturers, support staff and student union representatives. As a result, at least 10 HEIs have developed less punitive policy frameworks and taken a more developmental approach, leading to a much fairer treatment of plagiarism cases.