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The Initiative on Impunity and the Rule of Law, a joint project of the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, City University London and the Centre for Freedom of the Media, University of Sheffield, has played an agenda-setting role in a campaign involving several non-governmental and inter-governmental bodies. It influenced international legislation and NGO practices concerning human rights, freedom of information and protection of journalists, most notably through the adoption of the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity and its accompanying Implementation Strategy 2013-2014, both published in 2012.
Academic staff in The City Law School at City University London contributed to the campaign through their research expertise and the production of new material which enabled the identification of lacunae in the international standards of protection of journalists; and by making the case directly to United Nations decision-makers for additional safeguards.
The Initiative has achieved impact on public engagement, policy-making and civil society by: (i) shedding light on the problem of crimes against journalists by contributing detailed evidence on the number of human rights violations in different countries; (ii) campaigning to safeguard the personal and professional integrity of journalists worldwide; (iii) providing expert advice to governments, NGOs and international organisations to define legislation and understanding to prevent crimes against media freedom; and (iv) creating an international platform of academic and legal expertise for combatting violence against journalists.
The European Social Survey (ESS), established in 2001 and located at City University London, is a major multinational social survey involving the participation of 36 countries. It is designed to monitor change and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations. The impact of the ESS is extensive nationally and internationally particularly through improving survey methodology and through the subsequent adoption of these standards and practices by other national and international survey programmes. This has led to higher standards of measurement in policy-oriented surveys and commercial survey practice. The ESS was awarded the Descartes Prize for `Excellence in scientific collaborative research' in 2005 in recognition of its world-leading quality. In 2014 the ESS will become the first UK-hosted European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC) when it is launched on 31st January at the Royal Society in London by Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn of the European Commission Directorate-General (Research and Innovation) and the UK Minister for Universities and Science, the Rt. Hon. David Willetts MP.
Research undertaken at City University London in collaboration with the University of Sussex led to a new methodological approach being developed through interaction with survey researchers within the framework of the European Social Survey (ESS), supported by European funding. The new methodological tool enhances understanding and analysis of media claims by governments and policy-makers. The work undertaken has addressed the need for interpretation of attitude questions across different countries and variations in responses to cross-national studies.
The impact was achieved through 1) the design of new methodologies for the coding of media claims by governments and policy-makers; 2) providing contextual data on media events; 3) the provision of guidance manuals and training across eight European countries for coding and archiving data for media analysis; and 4) the development of a media events framework for the analysis and understanding by policy-makers of `normal' and `exceptional' findings of public opinion surveys.