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Southampton based research has demonstrated to policymakers the benefits of temporary migration through overseas savings and skill acquisition which contribute to the economic development of the home country. The research has challenged traditional notions about the adverse effects of the 'brain drain' and directly contributed to the design of international migration policy in labour sending countries. It has also proactively influenced the policy recommendations of international organisations (e.g. ILO, Worl Bank) regarding return migrants and their enterprise creation. The World Bank used Southampton researcher, Wahba's research and expertise when assisting the Egyptian Government in the preparation for "Mode 4" in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) in 2010.
This case study relates to research on cultural and creative industry clusters at local, sub-regional and city-region scales. Our work was highly influential at a critical moment in the evolution of creative cluster policies in London and Toronto and subsequently the rest of the UK, by influencing the development and implementation of the Creative London/Toronto strategies. Through collating and evaluating international comparative evidence the project enabled critical assessment of an increasingly popular planning strategy. Likewise by systematically applying geographical methods to the study of creative clusters this work offered methodological rigour to local intra-city analysis absent from the wider policy debate at that time.
Systematic quantitative reviews of epidemiological evidence linking parental smoking with adverse respiratory health effects in childhood were published in 1997-1999 in Thorax. These meta-analyses were updated as a contribution to the US Surgeon-General's report on Secondhand Smoking, published in 2006, and the UK Royal College of Physicians' report on Passive Smoking and Children, published in 2010.
Over this period the adverse health effects of environmental tobacco smoke achieved prominence in public health policy, through campaigns for smoke-free workplaces (including pubs and restaurants) and publicity against parental smoking in the presence of children, both in cars and in the home.
Professor Barnes conducts world leading research on international regulation of fisheries. This informed his contribution to a research programme on Commonwealth fisheries policy. The research has helped to raise awareness, stimulate debate and change attitudes towards the international regulation of fisheries at the ministerial level and the local level through the Commonwealth study tour. The programme findings were published in `From Hook to Plate' and disseminated at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2009. Commonwealth members accepted the findings in this report, including the specific recommendations on fisheries regulation presented in Barnes's research.
Writtle College's Postharvest Technology Unit and the Mauritian Agriculture Research and Extension Unit (AREU) studied the use of returnable plastic crates (RPC's) to reduce food losses for subsistence farmers in Mauritius. This study demonstrated that the RPC's reduced damage caused by pressure, abrasion and lower temperatures. This study had a positive impact, mainly economic, on the postharvest losses of the "pomme d'amour" cooking tomatoes in Mauritius due to rot, damage and dehydration. As a result these stakeholders have increased their income through having a more marketable-quality crop to sell.
International engagement with the education policy priorities of small states has been significantly strengthened and reshaped since 2009 by research and subsequent activities undertaken by the Education in Small States Research Group at the University of Bristol. Small states have historically been marginalized from international policy debates and agendas. Their unique educational priorities have often not been reflected in international deliberations, goals and priorities for education. This research has significantly strengthened macro-level international policy engagement with the educational priorities of small states. This is evidenced by changes in policy priorities, strategic plans, funding streams, on-going interventions, new research initiatives, and government ministry support for small states provided by leading international agencies including the Commonwealth, UNESCO, The World Bank and national policy makers. The reach of impact is therefore evidenced across global, regional and national levels.
The research programme Decent Work for Domestic Workers (DWDW), led from the University of Manchester (UoM), has mapped regulatory strategies for the protection of domestic workers, generating a conceptual framework and set of techniques for the legal regulation of working time. These legal guidelines have informed global policy debates on domestic work, and helped to shape the 2011 International Labour Organization (ILO) `Domestic Workers Convention' (No. 189) and `Recommendation' (No. 201). The research findings have also influenced policy debates in individual jurisdictions, including Australia, Chile and Hong Kong, where research has been utilised in order to both advance a set of rationales for legal intervention, and as a source of techniques that can be incorporated into labour law instruments (i.e. both legislation and collective agreements).
The development of a robust criminal justice system is vital in any civilised society and benefits victims, witnesses, police, suspects, and the general public. Research in the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London has investigated fundamental principles underlying memory retrieval in the context of criminal justice scenarios in which memory may be particularly vulnerable. This research has had major impacts on the way in which police interview witnesses to a crime, and on the way in which video identification parades are conducted. It has also led indirectly to significant developments in the way in which evidence from very young children is treated in court.
Professor Sue Arrowsmith's research significantly influenced UNCITRAL's revised 2011 Model Law on Public Procurement. This is a model regulatory framework of global relevance that aims to help national governments avoid waste, secure adequate public services, and fight corruption in procurement. The UNCITRAL Secretariat's presentation of reform options to the Model Law Working Group was based directly on both the novel analytical templates and the detailed recommendations developed by Arrowsmith, and many of the revised Model Law's provisions on both existing and new subjects of regulation follow directly the specific recommendations in Arrowsmith's research.
This project, which challenged both preconceptions about a renowned artist and also the character of a retrospective, resulted in the most visited art exhibition ever staged at the Grand Palais in Paris (913,064 visitors). At the request of the Musée d'Orsay and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Professor Richard Thomson led the team organising Monet, 1840-1926. This was the first major retrospective of the work of Monet in Paris since 1980 and provided a model for mounting retrospectives. Building on research into the wider socio-historical impact of art, and its ability to stimulate debate, the radical display of Monet's paintings has made their scholarly interpretation more publicly accessible and is recorded in an exhibition catalogue that sold 83,000 copies.