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The Stanislavski Centre,(Patron, Prof. Anatoly Smeliansky), founded 2007, responds to the Stanislavski legacy and post-Stanislavski approaches to acting and provides a research-driven facility promoting and developing a new field of `Stanislavski Studies' within an international context. The Centre acts as a conduit enabling professional practice and scholarly research to interact, enrich and inform each other. Based upon the pioneering research, translations and publications of RBC's former Principal, Professor Jean Benedetti, the Centre, guided by a distinguished advisory board, includes an archive of photographic, printed and AV materials and hosts an annual programme of events open to the public. In 2012, the centre launched an ejournal, Stanislavski Studies. (bit.ly/Iu8VVo)
The British Asian Theatre Project (2004-2009), involved researchers from the Centre for Performance Histories and Cultures. The project charted and disseminated the cultural history and heritage of British Asian theatrical practitioners, enriching appreciation and preserving the heritage of British Asian theatre, partly by enabling theatre professionals to possess their own history more securely. Research findings were presented as part of industry debates, informing theatrical development. This led to a further research project, `The Southall Story' (2011-2013), which is documenting the cultural history of the art forms and political movements among the British Asian communities in Southall. There is further funding via the AHRC Follow On grant scheme for a touring exhibition and performances, emerging from `The Southall Story,' in the source culture of India, and on to Thailand. These projects are preserving and disseminating this public history through a public digital archive, and series of community and arts events in the UK and internationally. All the research is supported by AHRC funding, awarded after a rigorous peer-review process.
This case study draws together a number of research projects led by members of the UoA whose work has had shared thematic goals. Collectively, this research has impacted upon the UK theatre industry's understanding of its international influence. This has served to promote and champion a vibrant culture of international new playwriting in the UK, and also to disperse positive practices internationally to encourage equally vibrant playwriting cultures in communities abroad. The research has had effects on the cultural capital of key institutions that support international playwriting and its growth; and formative impact on the praxis of translation and adaptation in the theatre industry.
The principal beneficiaries of the impact are key industry institutions and organisations who have a stake in the development of new playwriting, its funding and its outreach (the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, the Young Vic, the Old Vic, ACE, the British Council, etc.).
Direct impact is in the transfer of knowledge to industry and NGO stakeholders. Secondary impact is in the implementation of policy and procedure by those organisations (establishing initiatives; moving into new territories). Indirect and long-term impact will be felt by arts practitioners, audiences and theatres internationally. Additional spin-off and associated research enquiries are also likely to use this research as a springboard for further enquiry.
In Place of War (IPoW) is a research project that has had substantial impact on civil society and cultural life worldwide by documenting, analysing and enhancing the work of war zone theatre practitioners. Paradoxically, in a context of globalisation, these artists are professionally and geographically isolated: indeed, it is often assumed that art cannot take place in a war zone, when in fact it remains a vital means of human expression during times of crisis. To overcome this relative invisibility, the project has helped professionals and organisations in several countries by building artist networks, developing resources for creative practice, and offering practitioner training. The project has also provided support for third sector agencies developing projects in this field, with the research enabling more context-sensitive planning of programmes. There has also been impact on public discourse, providing new insights about the role of artistic work in conflict situations and the esteem in which it is held, while contributing to the increased public profile of such work and its potential for global circulation.
The nanobiotechnology research group at the University of Kent (Bruce et al.) has pioneered the ability to control, manipulate and commercially process magnetite nanoparticles. Two spinout companies, EryDel and Dietheva have been formed, with a €6 million venture capital grant, as a direct result of the Kent-led research. EryDel (in collaboration with Philips Healthcare) are exploiting the materials worldwide for drug delivery (Erydex), with US and European approval for Orphan drug designation given in 2013 for genetic diseases, and Diatheva are marketing the technology for forensic diagnostic kits. The predicted five-year revenue is €35 million with a potential market of €17 billion.
William Wordsworth's poetry is of lasting value to our cultural and national identity and to perceptions of the Lake District. The desire to communicate core Wordsworthian principles shapes and informs the research undertaken by the Wordsworth Centre, Lancaster University, which seeks to vitally reconnect poetry and the region in the twenty-first century. Such research has produced an increased engagement with Wordsworth's poetry and transformed the understanding of his work and its continuing relevance for a range of beneficiaries.
Two research projects undertaken through collaboration with the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere have realised considerable impact in the assessment period through three main channels:
1) a pioneering website, designed for diverse users, containing the first digital versions of selected Wordsworth manuscripts, which has received over 580,000 hits;
2) contributions to the visitor experience at Dove Cottage, Grasmere;
3) 40 `Wordsworth Walks' around Grasmere and its environs involving over 950 participants from a range of different groupings (business, public sector, general public).
Professor Rebellato's research has been a significant factor in the revival of Terence Rattigan's reputation as a serious playwright, impacting on a wave of high-profile productions from 1998-2013. He has impacted on two groups of beneficiaries identified in the Department's Impact Strategy:
Research led by Cayley (the Exeter Manuscripts Project) has enhanced appreciation of medieval manuscript culture, drawing upon unique Exeter holdings, and has increased public understanding of medieval game cultures and European manuscript production (Impact 1). Her iPad app, developed with Antenna International, related exhibition and workshops have effected a `translation' of medieval material culture through modern media. Research by Roberts has disseminated new understandings of Renaissance obscenity in visual form, influencing artistic practice, and engaging regional communities (Impact 2). Jones has generated impact by stimulating public engagement with theatre and the visual arts (Impact 3) based on research offering new understandings of narrative and the visual.
The product of the underpinning research is a dynamically searchable, on-line catalogue of the archives of theatrical producer, critic and cultural promoter Henri Brochet (1898-1952). Preservation and interpretation of historical memory is a major part of the impact, which comes from the discovery of an aspect of grassroots Catholic activity in France. Importantly, the catalogue is physically sited not in one of the metropolitan centres of France but in Auxerre, Brochet's home town (a major centre at the provincial level). Access to these materials has enabled an apparently peripheral (regional) public to understand local, national, and international heritage in ways that enrich civic and cultural life.
Buddhists and non-Buddhists across the world, educators, students and chaplains are among those who have benefited personally, academically and professionally from the imaginative dissemination of Bristol's pioneering research into Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China. Exhibitions, talks, printed and online learning materials, image archives and websites have all been brought into play. These multiple approaches to the sharing of new knowledge have led to beneficial impacts on a wide variety of individuals, from schoolchildren on the brink of adulthood to people receiving comfort on their deathbed.