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University of Glasgow research into public sector governance has influenced planning and investment in major transport and infrastructure projects. Transport Scotland's Strategic Transport Projects Review was the first nationwide, multi-modal, evidence based review of Scotland's transport system; as a member of the Board, Professor Iain Docherty contributed to its recommendations, adopted by the Scottish Government in December 2008. His research also shaped the Commission for Integrated Transport's negotiations with the Westminster Government on the White Paper which underpinned the Planning Bill 2008 and subsequent Planning Act 2009; informed the Cabinet Office's 2009 Urban Transport strategy and recommendations; and influenced 2012 investment planning discussions by Edinburgh City Council.
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.
Professor Michael Keating has worked on various aspects of public policy-making in Scotland and abroad, supported primarily by the ESRC and Leverhulme Trust. Impact has taken the form of a series of collaborative academic-practitioner engagements, involving civil servants, politicians, and civil society actors. These events have focused on establishing a common vocabulary and core concepts, while exploring difficult issues in public policy and facilitating mutual learning between academics and practitioners. Insights from these encounters have been institutionalised in the Scottish Policy Innovation Forum, as well as ongoing seminars, public lectures, innovative training courses for civil servants, and informal discussions.
This case study is built upon the successful fusion of Spatial Planning with the Ecosystem Approach, translating complex theory into operational outputs for public and stakeholder engagement, which improve policy processes and outcomes across built and natural environments and fringe interfaces. `RUFopoly' and `EATME tree' are co-produced outputs, maximising engagement in learning spaces within game and web-portal formats respectively. For example, the Welsh Government has used both tools to design emerging policy frameworks (testimonial1). The novel research model employed builds research teams that integrate academic, policy and practice participants within a collective journey of (re)-discovery maximising reflective practice and social learning.
Chang's research has covered a wide range of public policy, including industrial policy, trade policy, privatisation, and agricultural policy, as well as theories of state intervention. By successfully challenging the then prevailing orthodoxy on economic development, his research has had significant influence on the actions of many national governments, multilateral institutions (e.g., the UN, the World Bank) and NGOs (e.g., Oxfam). Chang's research has also had substantial impact on public debate concerning economic policies, especially but not exclusively those regarding development issues. He has had two best-selling mass-market books (together sold 1.15 million copies as of December 2012) and gained worldwide media exposure for his views.
Research by Surrey's Centre for International Macroeconomic Studies (CIMS) has had significant impact on monetary policy in several emerging economies.
This case study highlights impact in Nigeria and Pakistan. Both are important emerging economies: Nigeria is the second largest economy in Africa and ranks 30th by world GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity), while Pakistan ranks 27th; yet GDP per capita is relatively low in both.
Since 2008, Surrey research has: (1) led to the establishment of a new Centre for Survey Research at the State Bank of Pakistan, collecting data that have directly influenced the Bank's monetary policy; (2) steered reform of the macroeconomic models used by the State Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria; and (3) helped develop a new approach to monetary policy Nigeria.
Research conducted by John Turnpenny shaped the recommendations of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). In 2010, the EAC addressed the need to embed sustainable development across government policy-making. This followed the closure of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) and the end of funding for the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC). The EAC determined to change how it engaged with experts, while reaffirming and expanding its role in the overall scrutiny of government sustainability policy. Turnpenny's findings formed the basis of two of the thirteen headline recommendations in the EAC's 2011 report Embedding Sustainable Development Across Government. In addition his suggestions helped influence significant changes in the way that the EAC operates, and contributed to its wider impact among other policy actors.
The research findings improved the comparative evidence base used by policy makers, providers and advocacy organisations when designing and delivering contracted out welfare to work programmes in the UK, including the development of service user safeguards implemented through the Department of Work and Pensions `Commissioning Strategy' and Work Programme (which will cater for over 3 million unemployed participants between 2011 and 2016). The research findings have also had a wider impact in informing policy makers, providers and user groups in other countries that have introduced or are introducing such contracting systems.
University of Glasgow research, undertaken in collaboration with the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, directly influenced the Government decision to create the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The Conservative Party cited the research as part of the rationale for the creation of such a fiscal body in its policy paper in 2008; the research was subsequently presented to the Strategy Unit of the Cabinet Office, No.'s 10 and 11 Downing Street and the Institute of Government throughout 2008 and 2009. The proposal was implemented by the coalition government in 2010, with the research team then using the findings to advise a Treasury Select Committee as well as the Bank of England on the appropriate remit, expectations and functions of the newly-created OBR.
Dr Kate Bedford's work has demonstrated the limits of existing frameworks for addressing gender and sexuality in development policy and has had a significant impact in four main ways. First, it has supported and influenced the work of the major NGOs (including Sexuality Policy Watch, and the Bretton Woods Project/Action Aid) in holding development institutions to account on questions of gender equality. Second, it has had substantial influence on the work of transnational public bodies (including UNRISD), challenging conventional wisdom and stimulating debate among policymakers. Third, it has had considerable impact on how development practitioners are taught, in the UK and beyond. Finally, it has enjoyed a sustained influence in shaping a new area of critical public debate, improving public understanding of sexuality and development and engaging diverse international audiences. In the light of increased global attention to gender and development (evident across several leading international institutions), Bedford's research has stimulated important debate about policy orthodoxy and has directly influenced several campaigns for policy change.