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Exeter Drama's research in Applied Theatre has had impact in the improvement of community understandings of mental health, providing professional development for medics and teachers, and providing and informing training in applied and community theatre. This case study outlines the impact of last twenty years of research and performance practice in applied theatre, developed by Honorary Research Fellow (2005-) and former senior lecturer (1990-2005) John Somers, and continued in the work of Fiona MacBeth, Kerrie Schaefer, Sarah Goldingay, Anna Harpin, and Jane Milling. Somers developed new approaches to community theatre and has given presentations on this work internationally. Impact has also been achieved through Somers' founding of the applied theatre company Exstream (Exeter, 2001) and under his direction Exstream achieved a reputation for excellence through the development of interactive theatre, raising awareness of issues related to wellbeing, mental health, and creativity within the community.
We conducted research on the impact of land-use change that has resulted in international action to improve forest management. Our research demonstrated that clearing forests to grow crops for biofuels leads to large carbon emissions. In light of these findings, the UK Government amended its biofuel policy to include mandatory sustainability criteria. Leeds researchers co-established with a number of businesses the charity United Bank of Carbon, resulting in the investment of £1.5 million and the protection of 200,000 hectares of forest. Our research underpinned a forest-based climate mitigation scheme resulting in the investment of an additional £440k in forest protection.
HIV-infected infants are at high risk of disease progression and death. Until 2008 guidelines recommended waiting until the infant displayed symptoms, or had a weakened immune system before starting treatment. The CHER trial found that starting infected infants on antiretroviral therapy as early as possible substantially reduced mortality compared with waiting until they developed symptoms or their immune system weakened. These results led quickly to changes in guidelines for treating HIV-infected infants issued by the US, World Health Organisation (WHO), Paediatric European Network for Treatment of AIDS (PENTA) and South Africa. These revised guidelines, if fully implemented along with early infant diagnosis, would reduce the number of infant deaths because of HIV by 76%, saving the lives of approximately 46,800 infants globally each year.
Global rules and regulatory institutions have major and ever-growing importance in contemporary governance. However, connections between global governance and citizens are often weak, compromising effectiveness and legitimacy. Civil society organisations (CSOs - including Non- Governmental Organisations, business forums, trade unions, think tanks and social movements) offer major potential to link global governance institutions (GGIs) with affected publics. Professor Scholte's sustained programme of research in this area, and related provision of resources and training to international beneficiaries such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has had significant social impact in raising both the quantity and the quality of GGI-CSO relations.
UCL researchers and overseas partners have developed a successful community intervention to improve maternal and newborn health, which is now saving lives in India's poorest communities and is being taken up in other low- and middle-income countries. The intervention involves village women's groups working together to identify, prioritise and address common problems during and after pregnancy using local resources. The process was tested successfully in Nepal, led to a 45% reduction in newborn mortality in an award-winning trial in rural India, demonstrated an impact on maternal mortality in a meta-analysis of seven trials across four countries, and has already been scaled up to a population of over 1.5 million in rural India's poorest communities.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health Organisation (WHO) regularly report estimates for the prevalence of HIV and associated metrics for almost every country in the world. These statistics are essential for tracking the scale and the impact of HIV epidemic and are used routinely in the policy decisions and funding allocation decisions of national governments and international donors and therefore have a major impact on international public health. The methods underlying those estimates were originally developed, and continue to be refined and updated, by an international group of researchers at Imperial College London.
LSHTM research led to the development of a computer-based tool known as the Lives Saved Tool (LiST), which has been made available to international organisations, governments and NGOs free of charge. It allows policy-makers and programme managers in the 75 countries with the highest number of child deaths to identify which policy and programme choices are likely to have the greatest impact in cutting neonatal and child mortality. Since its 2008 launch, LiST has been used widely by international agencies, foundations, bilateral agencies, large NGOs and individual countries to determine investment priorities and programme choices.
Complementary strands of research, including the 'Trickle Out Africa' (TOA) Economic and Social Research Council project based in Queen's University Management School, has significantly increased awareness and understanding of social and environmental (SE) enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is critical to achieving sustainable development and poverty alleviation. The research, by Principal Investigator Dr Diane Holt, has:
Research by the University of Nottingham's Education and Technology for Health team has benefited healthcare students, professionals, users, carers and institutions both in the UK and internationally by establishing a participatory methodology for high-quality, sustainable multimedia Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs). These learning tools are now used in 50 countries globally to facilitate individual access to knowledge, enhance learning within curriculums and deliver continuing professional development, with feedback showing satisfaction of up to 100% in some nations. They are also being used to train healthcare professionals in resource-poor countries, further strengthening the University of Nottingham's role as a global education provider.
Since 2005, a pioneering set of Oxford University studies has actively informed the development of vidence-based policy, practice, and programming for AIDS-affected children in Sub-Saharan Africa (totalling an estimated 85 million children, orphaned by HIV/AIDS or living with AIDS-ill caregivers). Key impacts include new policies: on psychosocial support; on `young carers' of AIDS-sick parents as well as orphans; and on child abuse prevention for AIDS-affected families. These are based on Oxford findings that revealed major effects of parental AIDS on children's psychological, educational and sexual health. Crucially, the research has also identified modifiable pathways of risk and resilience that have been used to guide interventions. As a result, studies are extensively cited in policy documents of the South African government, US President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR-USAID), UNICEF and Save the Children, and have been used to train over 10,000 health and community staff and to develop programmes reaching millions of children throughout the region.