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Since 2007 Tara Hamling has been working in collaboration with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) to embed research within their operations. The partnership has achieved these impacts in the area of Cultural Life to benefit museum professionals, visitors to SBT properties and a global public interested in Shakespeare and his period of history:
The history of cartography research group at Queen Mary have exploited their research on the cultural history of maps in the early modern period to enhance public understanding of mapmaking and the knowledge that maps create. They have taken their academic research to a wider audience through authored television and radio programmes, research council-funded books, public lectures and reviews across a range of media. In this way, their research has generated significant economic impact, contributing to the economic prosperity of the creative sector, including trade publishing, print media journalism, television, and literary festivals, and improving the quality of evidence, argument and expression in public discourse on contemporary map-making.
Twenty-first century concepts of faith, community, and division were forged in the early modern period: an age of Reformations, unprecedented cross-cultural encounters (especially between Christianity and Islam), and new understandings of religious, personal and social identity. The research of Ziad Elmarsafy, Kevin Killeen, and Helen Smith, in this field, has impacted upon a wide range of publics, individuals, and institutions, who have gained a new understanding of national and international attitudes to religious life, and a changed perspective on pressing contemporary debates about belief and society. Beneficiaries include school students, interested members of the public, and staff, volunteers, and visitors at Hardwick Hall and York Minster Library. These latter collaborations paved the way for national impact, benefitting the National Trust, and Cathedral Libraries and Archives.
The impact within this case study is two-fold. Firstly through the dissemination of her research, which focuses on the political, cultural and economic interactions, co-operation and conflict between Muslim and Christian communities in the early modern Mediterranean world, Dr Claire Norton seeks to create impact by challenging current negative media stereotypes of Muslims and Islamic cultures. This has been achieved through a variety of public lectures, academic and more popular publications, media appearances and pedagogical workshops with teachers. Beneficiaries of the impact include interested members of the public, teachers, schools, and -academic community stakeholders - both religious and non-religious. Secondly Norton is currently working with teachers with the aim of converting academic research into subject knowledge and usable classroom resources, thus enabling teachers to integrate knowledge of Islamic cultures into mainstream educational contexts with the aim of challenging negative misconceptions.
Through a series of well-established knowledge exchange partnerships, Leicester historians have enabled heritage organisations to identify a research agenda to inform their strategy, create innovative tourist information resources for historic sites in the UK, and manage the transition of these resources from paper to digital media. The cumulative impact of their contribution has been to extend the global reach of these organisations, to improve the quality of visitor experiences of the historic places they manage, to increase footfall and revenues at historic sites, and to develop — and realise — new pathways for economic growth by increasing demand for and strategic investment in heritage-based tourism.
The impact of the research has two elements:
Romeo & Juliet in Performance: collaboration with the organisation Film Education on the production of a DVD-based interactive teaching resource for GCSE English (2013).
Jacobean City Comedy. The editing/adaptation, rehearsing, public performances, and filming of Thomas Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters and John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan (2011 and 2013). The first project has proved a significant teaching resource with more than 1700 schools nationwide already using it in their teaching. The second project entails significant public engagement through performances, workshops and talks, and educational outreach events, while a website further facilitates and tracks on-going discussion between scholars, theatre professionals and the wider public.
The research of Amanda Vickery, Sandra Cavallo and Jane Hamlett focuses on the interplay between personal identity, space, the material world, and social structures. It has had an impact on UK cultural life, economic prosperity, and public understanding. Demonstrating progress from independent research to externally-funded collaborative research, it has underpinned exhibitions attended by tens of thousands of visitors, generating substantial revenue for two national museums. Linked broadcasting events have earned major audiences, plus significant revenue for the BBC and an independent production company. Visitor/audience feedback demonstrates that the exhibitions and broadcasts have changed public perceptions of both past and present.
Beyond Macbeth: Shakespeare Collections in Scotland, an AHRC-funded research project into Scottish receptions of Shakespeare, culminated in a major exhibition at the National Library of Scotland (NLS) in 2011. The project contributed to economic prosperity, education, and cultural life. It brought direct financial benefits to the NLS, in the form of £88k to mount the exhibition and media coverage with an advertising-value equivalent to £19k. The exhibition received over 26k visitors, a 30% increase on the previous winter exhibition. The project also shaped the way in which the NLS presents important elements of the cultural heritage in its custody, and influenced the development of its learning activities and online learning resources for UK schools. Visitors were led to examine their assumptions about Shakespeare, the history of his reception, and his significance for Scotland, and the exhibition was cited in the Scottish Parliament as an example of how the NLS meets its remit.
Queen Mary's research in Renaissance Studies has informed curatorial practice at cultural institutions in the UK and abroad, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Cini Foundation in Venice, producing displays that have reflected new conceptual approaches to the Renaissance and that have captured the imagination of large, general audiences. Their success was due, in part, to the close synergies between curators and Queen Mary scholars, including shared PhD student supervision through the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme and through co-curation. Novel research ideas influenced the conceptualisation and approach to exhibits on Renaissance topics, manifested in new ways of presenting images and objects and their accompanying interpretative materials, such as catalogues, wall texts, events, and engagement with the media.
This project created a new space for public debate surrounding the World Shakespeare Festival, which was a key strand in the UK's 2012 Cultural Olympiad. By creating a collaborative online forum that invited cultural conversation, the project facilitated discussion about the role of Shakespeare and the arts in twenty-first century culture as well as generating the only complete, critical, and publicly-accessible account of the largest intercultural celebration of Shakespeare ever staged. The project is an examplar of interdependent research and impact.