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Middlesex research into legislative models protecting whistleblowers has, since its beginnings in 1993 (Lewis), made a substantial contribution to protecting this category of persons in the UK and abroad. Research has led to improved corporate accountability, making organisations act responsibly, benefiting employees, and enhancing civil society voices. Empirical research in the public and private sectors has been brought into wider social policy debates. The International Whistleblowing Research Network, established in 2009 and hosted at Middlesex, is now actively used as a conduit for collaboration, taking findings to stakeholders and serving as a means to engage policy makers in numerous countries. Beneficiaries are whistleblowers, organisations and the general public.
The Higher Education Field Academy (HEFA) is a research-led initiative in which thousands of secondary school students (mostly aged 13-15) from groups with low levels of progression to university education acquire new transferrable skills and measurably raised levels of personal confidence and educational aspirations. These impacts are achieved through a tailored scheme of work which involves them in investigating the origins and development of English villages using archaeological methods. The scheme has also benefited other communities, including disadvantaged adults with autistic spectrum conditions, and generated a new teaching module in GCSE History.
Gray's research has broadened and deepened public access to Folklore, Fairy-tale and Fantasy (=FFF) studies. It focuses on popular contemporary and past authors such as Pullman, Tolkien and Stevenson, and has resonated with a growing public interest in FFF. Gray created the Sussex Centre for FFF (=SCFFF) as a vehicle for furthering excellent international research and engaging with non-academic audiences. The SCFFF facilitates dissemination to a wide range of publics (age, gender, nationality) via public events (conferences, exhibitions and public lectures), consultancy and collaboration (Universal Pictures, Royal Opera House, National Theatre, Folklore Society), regular media engagement (e.g. BBC Radio 2 and World Service, Daily Mirror, ELLE) and active online presence (web, twitter, blog). Through each of these pathways Gray seeks to broaden and deepen the quality of debate, and highlight the relevance of FFF to contemporary society.