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The pedagogic research undertaken by the School of Law has produced an ambitious and innovative model of clinical legal education: the in-house live client model, which offers a university-based free legal service offering full representation to private clients and NGOs in the form of the Student Law Office. The Student Law Office integrates supervised legal service in the law curriculum, thereby delivering free access to justice to the wider community whilst benefiting the learning environment. Impact is three-fold:
Meeting rapidly rising food demands at least cost to biodiversity is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Since 2005, research in the Department of Zoology has demonstrated that measures to reconcile biodiversity and agricultural production are sometimes best focused on spatial separation (land sparing) rather than integration (land sharing).This work has had a significant impact on policy debate, and has informed policy decisions relating to management of the agri-environment at both national and international levels. Policy statements on increasing food production at least cost to nature now make explicit the potential role that land sparing may have, and place greater emphasis on the need for clear scientific evidence of costs and benefits of different approaches.
This case study demonstrates that the Transitional Justice Institute (TJI) peace process research has substantially impacted on key stakeholders in multiple conflicted and post-conflict states. Impacts include developing sustained relationships with public officials to inform policymaking, making recommendations for legal changes, capacity building with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on peace process issues and addressing conflict-related abuses, informing public debate, and raising awareness of international and comparative legal standards among local judiciaries subsequently applied in their work. Impacts have benefited a range of users and contributed to growing sensitivity to victims' needs in conflict resolution.
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.
The global pledge of achieving Education For All by 2015 is compromised by providers' reliance on education services that are designed for sedentary users and exclude nomadic pastoralists. Dr Caroline Dyer (University of Leeds; Senior Lecturer in Development Practice, 2004-2011; Reader in Education in Development, 2011- present) has re-visioned approaches to education for nomadic groups through her analysis of how public policy perpetuates pastoralists' educational marginalisation and design of research-based models of service provision that can deliver pastoralists' right to education inclusion without compromising their mobile livelihoods. Her research led to changes in national policy strategy and re-designed service delivery in Kenya in 2010, shaped policy debate in Afghanistan from 2012, and has supported community and NGO advocacy in India since 2008.
The International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS) is a world leader in the systematic comparative research on sign languages (Sign Language Typology), and conducts the world's largest typological projects on sign language structures, using a large international partnership network. The impact of this work, often in developing countries, is seen in the domains of:
a) improved educational attainment and professional development for marginalised groups (deaf sign language users); and
b) linguistic rights for sign language users through engagement with international policy makers, non-governmental organisations and professional bodies (in India, in Turkey and with international bodies).
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.
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.
Plant resistance provides sustainable control of the $125bn annual world crop losses to nematodes to replace environmentally hazardous pesticides. Urwin and Atkinson have developed three biosafe resistance technologies that 1) suppress feeding success, 2) reduce root invasion and 3) suppress nematode development by RNA interference. We have developed GM agriculture with leading industry (Sinochem, Monsanto) and in emerging economies through free access to technology, capacity building initiatives, review of collaborative R&D plans (India) and regulatory approval of field trials (Uganda). The work has also influenced policy-makers in the UK and in Switzerland, leading to new security measures for GM field trials in these countries..
Rabies is the most lethal known infectious disease and kills 55,000 people annually worldwide, mainly in Africa and Asia; however, it is almost entirely preventable. Effective vaccines for animals and humans are available, but their use is limited by cost and accessibility. Research undertaken at the University of Glasgow by Professor Sarah Cleaveland and her team has led to the development and adoption of new health and veterinary policies in East Africa, transforming research findings into practical strategies for rabies prevention and control. These strategies reduce the cost of medical treatment (such as post-exposure prophylaxis), increase its effectiveness (by improving compliance) and eliminate the barriers to receiving treatment in some of the world's most disadvantaged communities. Research by the Glasgow team on dog vaccination strategies has also made a major contribution to the recognition by the World Health Organization (WHO) that global canine rabies elimination is feasible, with national and global strategies now focussing on dog vaccination as a cost effective means of reducing human rabies deaths.