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Research at the Reid School of Music (RSM) identified the importance of music making for developing creative and social skills for children with educational and behavioural difficulties. This led to the establishment of the Botanics Project, which has provided primary school children from economically deprived areas of Edinburgh with an intense experience of music making and performing, while equipping their classroom teachers with effective techniques for animating interest in and response to the performing arts. The project has involved about 2000 children and 40 teachers, with an audience of around 500 for each event, many of whom were new visitors to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museum of Scotland.
Since 2006 Professor Christopher Fox has been engaged in a series of linked projects which explore ways in which the engagement of performers and listeners in texted music for vocal ensemble can be enhanced. The research was initially based on received understandings of the perceptible relationship between music and text but, as the project and its impact have developed, the research has extended into a collaborative scientific study of this relationship, funded by two successive awards from the Wellcome Trust. Each stage of the research has been extensively disseminated through public performance, broadcast, recording, print and on-line media and the impact of the research now reaches into a wide range of communities of interest and the general public.
Research undertaken at Keele has made the social exclusion of older people visible to opinion- leaders and policy makers, helping to shape their perceptions of ageing. These changes in attitude have contributed to transforming provision for older people and promoting inter-generational interaction within local communities through both policy and practice, in both national and local government. The research has had a direct impact on national government policies, and has also coalesced into national campaigns to improve older people's lives. Regional impacts initially focussed on making Manchester an `age-friendly city' which has subsequently been used as a model for other local councils across the country.
We have worked with over 100 music and radio organisations to help them meet the challenges which have arisen due to innovations in distribution consumption and interaction technologies. Our impact has concentrated on responding to transformations in music consumption culture and has contributed to the enhancement of economic prosperity, public service and cultural life. Our work has been central to fundamental changes in the activities of several radio and music organisations, either significantly improving their economic position or changing the way they interact with their audiences. We have had further non-economic impacts through a contribution to grassroots music organisations worldwide.
Findings from the IOE's substantial body of music research have had a significant impact on policy for successive Governments and NGOs in the UK and overseas, as well as on teaching and learning in the music classroom and outside. Research has led to curriculum innovation, increased participation and investment in music for all ages, including those with special needs, benefiting millions of children and young people attending schools in England and around the world. The impact derives from a wide range of externally funded studies, embracing music learning across all education sectors.
Dr Slater researches processes of musical creativity that involve technology. Music from two distinct projects reaches a public beyond academia via radio broadcasts, DJ and club culture, the commercial mechanisms of the music industry and more localised community pedagogy. His work contributes to an international audio culture that draws upon jazz, dance, electronica and orchestral music. Such resources provide rich material for education projects that offer young musicians and sound engineers an insight into the technical, social and musical processes of music production, composition and performance. Broadcast and pedagogy represent the two main routes through which his work has a wider impact. This case study documents impact on quality of life, cultural life and on pedagogy.
The research has resulted in positive impacts for cultural life, civil society and education by: (1) generating new ways of thinking that influence creative practice beyond the academy; (2) creating, inspiring and supporting new forms of (primarily) artistic and social expression beyond the academy; (3) contributing to continuing personal and professional development; and (4) preserving, conserving, and interpreting cultural heritage for audiences external to the academy. A `spin-out' performing organisation — Hull Sinfonietta — has been formed, and several creative works have been produced including a music-film (Lear Settings) made in collaboration with local primary and secondary schools and freelance animators and film editors. The main non-academic beneficiaries of the research are the music professionals of Hull Sinfonietta, the school children, their teachers, freelance practitioners, and concertgoers.
Odell-Miller's music therapy work has benefitted residents and produced demonstrable alterations in policy and the environment at Methodist Homes for the Aged (MHA). MHA is a well-established care provider for older people, delivering a range of high quality services to 16,000 individuals across Britain. Since Odell-Miller's pioneering, controlled music therapy trial in residential settings, focusing on live music interaction with older people with dementia, MHA has changed its policy and care provision to offer music therapy to 1,500 of its clients. MHA has also recruited twelve qualified music therapists in the last five years to support this policy change.
In 2003, the publication of What's Going On? was greeted by a banner headline on the front page of The Herald newspaper, reporting one of its findings: `100,000 children denied access to music tuition'. The Youth Music Initiative (YMI) was established in response to this report and is the national funding and development programme for young people's music in Scotland. Since its inception in 2003, it has funded Scottish local authorities to provide initial music making experiences in schools, and has supported local and national music initiatives in the informal sector, allowing many young people to make music who would not otherwise have done so. The impact of the research has been to shape and inform the Scottish Government's youth music policies and the roll-out of £97.5m investment in this area; it remains a foundation for policy, planning and funding of youth music across Scotland.
Research by Professor Ian Cross and his co-workers in the Centre for Music and Science (CMS) investigates the evolutionary foundations of human musicality especially in respect of relationships between music and language. It has had impact in the domain of public engagement with science through frequent media representation and active outreach. It has also helped to shape public discourse concerning the nature of music and its role in contemporary society, as reflected in the assimilation of ideas deriving from CMS research into the treatment of music from scientific perspectives in print, broadcast and digital media.