Impact Global Location: Europe

REF impact found 4596 Case Studies

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Animal Protection: Ethics and Politics

Summary of the impact

The use and treatment of animals in the provision of our food, clothing and other raw materials, as well as in the areas of medical research, sport and entertainment, polarises public opinion and provokes extreme views. Research by Professor Robert Garner on the ethics and politics of animal protection has provided a springboard for political debate and decision making both in the UK and internationally. In particular, Garner's work has impacted upon the debate within the animal protection movement, and has helped to shape aspects of government policy on animal welfare issues in general, most notably on the UK Government's approach to the issue of whaling, and DEFRA's approach to the ethics of using wild animals in circuses.

Submitting Institution

University of Leicester

Unit of Assessment

Politics and International Studies

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Studies In Human Society: Political Science
Law and Legal Studies: Law
Philosophy and Religious Studies: Philosophy

Identification and quantification of anticoagulant resistance in Norway rats and house mice: informing guidance and risk mitigation strategies.

Summary of the impact

Local authorities, the UK government and the European Commission have benefitted from the widespread application of new molecular methodologies, developed in 2005 and applied by the University of Reading's Vertebrate Pests Unit (VPU) to identify and quantify anticoagulant rodenticide resistance in rodent populations. Rodents are a major global pest that consumes our food, causes contamination with urine and faeces, damages structures through gnawing, transmits diseases, and impacts on species of conservation concern. Due to historical success and recent regulatory restrictions, anticoagulant rodenticides are the most common control method for these pests. However, physiological resistance to anticoagulants is now widespread and the VPU has been involved in mapping this resistance and identifying the genetic basis for the resistance. Their research has led to new methodologies to identify anticoagulant resistance that have been adopted by the global plant science industry and to new guidance in treating resistant populations that has been adopted by the European biocides industry.

Submitting Institution

University of Reading

Unit of Assessment

Biological Sciences

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Biological Sciences: Genetics

A benchmark tool for high performance computing

Summary of the impact

This case study describes the development, application and commercialisation of an open source tool, BSMBench that enables supercomputer vendors and computing centres to benchmark their system's performance. It comprehensively informs the design and testing of new computing architectures well beyond other benchmarking tools on the market, such as Linpack.

The significance of our code is that, unlike other benchmarking tools, it interpolates from a communication- to a computation-dominated regime simply by varying the (physics) parameters in the code, thus providing a perfect benchmark suite to test the response of modern multi-CPU systems along this axis. The impact of this work has great reach: a start-up company, BSMbench Ltd, has been founded to develop and commercialise the software; adopters have included IBM - one of the giants of the supercomputer world (where it uncovered errors in their compilers); it has been deployed by Fujitsu to validate its systems, by HPC Wales, a multi-site, commercially focussed national computer centre and by Transtec, an HPC company employing over 150 staff; and tutorial articles about BSMBench have appeared in magazines such as Linux Format.

This software tool spawned from our research into "Beyond the Standard Model" (BSM) physics which aims to understand the Higgs mechanism in particle physics at a fundamental level. This involved simulating quantum field theories using bespoke code on some of the fastest supercomputers on the planet.

Submitting Institution

Swansea University

Unit of Assessment

Physics

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Mathematical Sciences: Pure Mathematics
Information and Computing Sciences: Computation Theory and Mathematics

Slavery

Summary of the impact

Professor Zoe Trodd has contributed to changes in antislavery policy debate and practice at local, national and international levels—from lawyers' societies and school teachers, to national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the European Parliament—through a series of publications, consultations, public talks, and contributions to teaching and digital resources about contemporary slavery and abolitionism. Drawing on her own research, as well as research into historic forms of slave resistance and literary abolitionism by two other professors in the UoA, she has intervened in contemporary abolitionism by advising the government bodies, NGOs and community organisations working to liberate slaves, pass antislavery legislation and remove slavery from industries' supply chains.

Submitting Institution

University of Nottingham

Unit of Assessment

Area Studies

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies

UOA09-11: Absolute distance measurement

Summary of the impact

The performance of absolute distance measuring systems has been improved in terms of accuracy, traceability, reliability and cost through the introduction of new methodology arising from research at the University of Oxford. This has brought commercial benefit to a German company making measurement systems, through the creation of a new product line. New capabilities for measurement have been delivered to a first customer in Germany. The research has also resulted in the establishment of new activity at the National Physical Laboratory, and influenced UK and European technology roadmaps for future manufacturing.

Submitting Institution

University of Oxford

Unit of Assessment

Physics

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Physical Sciences: Other Physical Sciences
Technology: Communications Technologies

Accelerating structural biology with Phaser crystallographic software-Read

Summary of the impact

Knowledge of the three-dimensional structures of macromolecules is a prerequisite for understanding their function at the atomic level, an essential component of modern drug development. Most structures are determined by X-ray crystallography: the majority using molecular replacement (MR, which exploits known structures of related proteins), and about half of the remainder using single-wavelength anomalous diffraction (SAD). The Phaser crystallographic software, developed by Read and colleagues, implements powerful new likelihood-based methods for MR and SAD phasing and has made a large impact, accelerating over the period 2008-2013. At the pharma giant, AstraZeneca, Phaser is considered the "tool of choice" for solving structures by MR.

Submitting Institution

University of Cambridge

Unit of Assessment

Clinical Medicine

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Mathematical Sciences: Statistics
Information and Computing Sciences: Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing
Technology: Computer Hardware

1 Accelerating the development of new chemotherapy drugs using bioluminescent bacterial biosensors

Summary of the impact

Novel bioluminescent bacterial biosensors developed at UWE, Bristol, and commercialised by Randox, have been used by a range of companies to demonstrate effectiveness of drugs and decontamination procedures. This has improved development processes at companies including Clavis Pharma, Purest Solutions and Dycem, leading to new manufacturing processes and quality control test methods. The biosensors are used in novel applications to give pharmacodynamic data on effectiveness of drugs and real time in-situ demonstration of effectiveness of decontamination processes. These biosensors, pioneered and developed by Vyv Salisbury's group, have been commercially adopted and used for evaluation by at least six collaborating companies.

Submitting Institution

University of the West of England, Bristol

Unit of Assessment

Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy

Summary Impact Type

Technological

Research Subject Area(s)

Medical and Health Sciences: Medical Microbiology

Accessibility & User Needs in Transport for Sustainable Urban Environments (AUNT-SUE)

Summary of the impact

The case study captures and describes the outputs and impacts arising from cumulative research on the theme of accessibility in transport and urban design. Impacts are evidenced both through the research process in terms of end-user engagement, collaborative research and real world test bed research (local communities and neighbourhoods); and through intermediary and professional/ practitioner body validation, policy-making and take up of research findings and guidance/toolkits arising. Impacts have also occurred through wider dissemination, follow-up research and collaboration both nationally and internationally.

Submitting Institution

London Metropolitan University

Unit of Assessment

Business and Management Studies

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Built Environment and Design: Urban and Regional Planning
Studies In Human Society: Policy and Administration

Ancient Art on the Web: The Beazley Archive Online Database

Summary of the impact

The Beazley Archive Online Database enables large and diverse audiences to access and understand ancient art through Oxford research. It allows users around the world to ask and answer their own research questions and to learn about ancient imagery. It is principally dedicated to the study of ancient Athenian figure-decorated pottery and ancient/neo-classical engraved gems. It makes available hundreds of thousands of pictures and information-fields which can be browsed and searched in a variety of ways, according to the level and requirements of the user. The Database is the foremost academic tool for the study of ancient Greek pottery, but its demonstrable impact extends far beyond academia, to an international audience of students, educators, museums, businesses, and private researchers.

Submitting Institution

University of Oxford

Unit of Assessment

Classics

Summary Impact Type

Cultural

Research Subject Area(s)

Information and Computing Sciences: Data Format
History and Archaeology: Curatorial and Related Studies, Historical Studies

Access to Justice Through Education: Building a Law Clinic Culture in the UK and Beyond

Summary of the impact

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:

  1. a major contribution to voluntary legal services in a region with high social deprivation: over 1,000 clients secured access to justice and over £840,000 of compensation has been recovered for clients;
  2. a national and world leading role influencing the legal profession, regulators and policy makers; and
  3. building the capacity of law clinics in other HEIs to provide a free legal service.

Submitting Institution

Northumbria University Newcastle

Unit of Assessment

Law

Summary Impact Type

Societal

Research Subject Area(s)

Education: Curriculum and Pedagogy, Specialist Studies In Education
Law and Legal Studies: Law

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