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Franklin is a key participant in a formative period for global media and communications, in which power struggles over ownership and control of the internet are intensifying. Her work presaged the current global outcry over illegal forms of state-sponsored online surveillance and non-transparent forms of corporate storage and control of personal data. She combines participatory action research and critical theory with a leadership role in advocacy on human rights for the online environment. Focusing on UN and intergovernmental arenas in internet governance, her research unpacks how public, private, and civil society actors look to frame the terms of debate around diverging priorities for the internet's future design, access, and use. Her work has put human rights and principles advocacy for the internet onto the international human rights and internet governance agendas. It has played a formative role in increasing recognition — at the UN and European Union for instance — that online we have rights too.
Woodhouse's research has conceptual and instrumental impact in the UK and internationally. Instrumentally, her research has provided the basis for recommendations on accountability made by political groups, such as parliamentary committees. These relate to the mechanisms by which accountability is secured and to the constitutional relationships between Parliament and the executive, ministers and their civil servants, and MPs and their constituents. Conceptually, this impact concerns the debate by political actors on political accountability, whether of individual Members of Parliament for the standards to which they adhere or individual Ministers for their responsibilities within and outside their departments.
Dr Lee Jones' research on sovereignty, intervention and security in Southeast Asia has helped non-academic users understand this region and formulate policies towards it. This research is typical of work conducted in the School of Politics and International Relations' (SPIR) interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Global Security and Development: it explores interactions between international and domestic social, economic and political processes, is based on regional expertise, and generates policy-relevant findings. Dr Jones' audiences have included the UK parliament, UK and other European government departments, the Myanmar government, civil society organisations, and the general public via the media.
Professor Mushtaq Khan's re-examination of the orthodox approach to good governance - that sees `good governance' as a precursor for economic growth - has significantly influenced long-term international development funders, informing thinking, policy and practice through its sustained, well-evidenced case that a different set of `developmental' governance capabilities are required for economic growth in developing countries, which in turn serves as an effective catalyst for achieving good governance. The research has resulted in his appointment to a number of high-profile advisory roles for international organisations such as the UN, the World Bank and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).
Professor Richard Caplan's research explores the challenges that arise in the context of post- conflict peace- and state-building. His work on exit strategies and peace consolidation led the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) to ask him to examine specific challenges to designing and implementing transitional strategies in peace operations, and to suggest how these challenges could be met more effectively. This work initiated a process within the UN to introduce more rigorous benchmarking practices for peacebuilding, laid the foundations for the development of a common UN methodology for measuring peace consolidation and played an instrumental role in the production of a United Nations handbook on peace consolidation monitoring, entitled Monitoring Peace Consolidation - United Nations Practitioners' Guide to Benchmarking (United Nations, 2010). The handbook is being used to support practitioners engaged in peacebuilding across the UN system.
Mills has acted as invited advisor to the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on Tibet since 2008. During this time he has drafted four major briefing papers on Tibetan political, religious and human rights issues: `The 2008 Protests in Tibet: Main Facts & Analysis' (2008); `Issues of Sovereignty in the Sino-Tibetan Dispute' (2009); `Religious Policy and State Control in Tibet" (2010); " Self-Immolation Amongst Tibetans, 2009-2012' (2012). All of these papers have been ratified by the Cross Party Group as its principal output to the Scottish Parliament, and distributed to European parliaments and human rights organisations. These papers have since been extensively used by the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Human Rights, as well as by human rights and Tibet organisations.
The research has had significant impact in three key areas:
Adrian Leftwich's work has made a decisive contribution to changing the way that decision-makers understand `politics' in development policy and practice. Specifically, Leftwich contributed to a step change in the UK Department for International Development's (DfID) approach to the governance agenda, from a narrow technocratic focus on administrative capacity—formal structures and rules—to a much broader conceptualisation of governance as a political process. His `thinking and working politically' framework, encompassing leadership, coalitions and political economy analysis, has shaped the thinking, not only of DfID, but also the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and major international NGOs.
Emerging from investigations of social exclusion during the 1990s, the Unit's research into minority rights has led to outputs and consultancy ranging across political participation, identity, rights protection and international criminal law. The impact claimed here falls in two main channels. Firstly, research on socio-economic group rights, amplified by Castellino's work as co-chair of the relevant UN delegated group, has made a significant input into the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2015-30. Secondly, research has been incorporated into practice and capacity- building through projects involving judiciaries, advocates, statutory bodies, and NGOs. Beneficiaries include the public across 194 states who will benefit from implementation of SDGs over their 15 years lifespan; and civil society bodies and their users.
Drawing from his extensive research on the politics of the United Arab Emirates, Christopher Davidson provided a key expert witness report in Britain's longest running extradition case, resulting in a significant legal impact for the United Kingdom. The resulting judgement in the case has subsequently become a point of reference for disputes over extradition law in a number of other countries, indicating international reach. Davidson's evidence was considered as crucial to the outcome of the case, with key beneficiaries including persons under threat of extradition to countries with records of human rights abuses, as well as human rights organisations seeking to advance consideration of human rights in international extradition agreements.