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Pre-eclampsia is a major contributor to death and disability in pregnancy. Diagnosis, based on accurate blood pressure (BP)/proteinuria determination, is limited by measurement errors and being late features of the disease. In collaboration with industry, King's College London (KCL) researchers have developed an inexpensive, accurate, simple BP device suitable for rural clinics. This device allows intervention to reduce mortality/morbidity and is currently being rolled out in a Gates Foundation project in Africa and Asia. KCL researchers have also helped the company Alere Inc. with the development of a diagnostically accurate test of placental growth factor (PlGF) in women with suspected pre-eclampsia: Alere Triage®PlGF. This demonstrates high sensitivity, superior to current tests, and following commercialisation is being adopted internationally. Their work is additionally reflected in guidelines of international standards for BP device accuracy.
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.
Taxonomy is of key relevance to the environment, agriculture, food production, and human health. However, describing all living organisms is such a daunting task that it calls for new approaches. A DNA-based system for species identification, called 'DNA Barcoding', is one such solution. Imperial researchers identified DNA barcodes for plants in 2008, which have since had impacts on the environment, health and welfare and in commerce. The plant DNA barcodes have been endorsed by the Consortium for the Barcoding of Life and have led to multiple applications ranging from facilitating biodiversity inventories, helping authentication of material (herbal medicine) for trade control in Malaysia, South Africa, India and Nigeria, and combating invasive species and smuggling in Africa.
Research conducted by the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Social Justice (CSPSJ) led to a new way of assessing child poverty in developing countries. This novel method (termed the Bristol Approach) resulted in the United Nations General Assembly's adoption, for the first time, of an international definition of child poverty (2006). It also underpinned UNICEFs Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities (2008-10), which was run in over 50 countries. In the last ten years, the CSPSJ's work has put child poverty at the centre of international social and public policy debates. Its researchers have advised governments and international agencies on devising anti-poverty strategies and programmes that specifically meet the needs of children, and have significantly influenced the way child poverty is studied around the world. The Centre has developed academic and professional training courses for organisations like UNICEF on the issues of children's rights and child-poverty. Our work has also spurred NGOs such as Save the Children to develop their own child-development indices, and so has had a direct and profound impact on the lives of poor children around the planet.
The Disaster and Development Network (DDN) researches and facilitates the implementation of disaster risk reduction strategies to improve community resilience in the poorest communities of Southern Africa and South Asia. The DDN aims to initiate life-saving health policies and disaster risk reduction strategies through local engagement and policy intervention. This Case Study focuses on the way interventions based on DDN research have been implemented at local level, exemplified through community resilience-building in Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. DDN research has impacted the United Nations Hyogo Framework for Action, the latest international strategy for disaster reduction.
Malaria kills around 650,000 children a year but can be prevented by killing the mosquito vectors. As mosquitoes become resistant to insecticides the prevention measures can become ineffective. Research at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) led by Professor Hemingway FRS has been instrumental in the development of current World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines to manage resistance, and has led to improved resistance diagnostics and novel monitoring software to integrate entomological and human health outcomes. LSTM's research led to the creation of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) which was established as an independent Product Development Partnership (PDP) in 2008. New, longer lasting formulations of insecticides developed by IVCC are now in operational use, and several novel public health insecticides are under development.
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.
The impact described here focuses on the complex issue of Ireland's representation in film, its exhibition and cultural remediation. It derives from a research project undertaken during two discrete periods (1993-2001) and (2011-2013), the most recent configuration of which at the Centre for Irish Studies (CIS) at St Mary's University College, aims to produce a new cultural history that includes its diasporic forms and transnational axes. The research findings have informed agendas for cultural institutions, adult education programmes and cultural events. The case study addresses the issue of filmic variation across regional, national and international contexts thus contributing to debates about transnational cinema.
Essex research on electoral administration has informed the development of practical measures to reduce electoral corruption in a number of different countries. Work led by Professor Sarah Birch has contributed significantly to promoting good practice in elections both in the UK and in a number of new and semi-democracies. In the UK, Birch's research played an important role in shaping the Electoral Administration Act 2006, which led to a significant reduction in postal voting abuse in the 2010 General Election. In Macedonia, Birch's research was used to inform a UN Development Programme project on proxy voting that fed directly into strategy documents from the State Election Commission and a Code of Conduct signed by all parties. Following the project, 'family voting' in Macedonia declined 17 per cent in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Birch extended her work in a series of training projects on parliamentary strengthening in Lebanon and Mozambique as part of a £5 million programme funded by DFID and the FCO and implemented through the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. In addition, her research regularly informs the practical work of various international organisations involved in the organisation and monitoring of elections.
In 2008, Professor Frank Hardman led a baseline study of pedagogic practices in Tanzanian primary schools to inform the design of a national school-based in-service education and training (INSET) programme. In February 2011, a pilot of the programme was launched and in August 2012 Hardman was commissioned to lead on an evaluation of the pilot, building on the 2008 baseline. Based on the findings of the 2012 evaluation, the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) and Prime Ministers' Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (PMO-RALG) are currently planning a national scale-up of the INSET programme.