Summary of the impact

Historical research into natural disasters has underpinned emergency planning and management in the UK and overseas. Undertaken by colleagues in Hull and other HEIs, the output of this research has contributed to the setting of industry standards, informed the development of modern technology, highlighted issues of social justice, prompted cultural comparisons of `best practice', assisted in reducing communities' vulnerability and linked reconstruction work to developmental issues. Non-academic beneficiaries of the research are communities and individuals in disaster-affected areas, and the governments and NGOs involved in managing disasters.

Summary of the impact

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.

Summary of the impact

Since 2006 Professor Cooper has led interdisciplinary research to inform the design of the urban environment, especially in relation to creating sustainable places that support citizen wellbeing. Outcomes include a new model of design decision-making, a toolkit for urban design decisions, and collation of evidence on the impact of environment on mental health and wellbeing. Her work has been supported by EPSRC, over ninety companies, and six city councils. Impact has included tools to enable planners and developers to address issues such as density and wellbeing; informing government policy on mental health and the environment; raising the profile of design-led approaches to complex policy problems.

Summary of the impact

As a consequence of research carried out at the University of Stirling, as set out in this case study, enhancement of the capacity of National Sport Associations has been achieved:

• A set of development actions have been established by the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) in order to guide future planning for the NSAs.
• The National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina has adopted the capacity development process followed in this research
• Olympic Solidarity has developed a web platform to allow the NSAs in all 204 National Olympic Committees to carry out capacity development.
• The NOC of Iraq has passed a resolution to build the capacity of the NSAs in Iraq.

Summary of the impact

This case study is built upon the successful fusion of Spatial Planning with the Ecosystem Approach, translating complex theory into operational outputs for public and stakeholder engagement, which improve policy processes and outcomes across built and natural environments and fringe interfaces. `RUFopoly' and `EATME tree' are co-produced outputs, maximising engagement in learning spaces within game and web-portal formats respectively. For example, the Welsh Government has used both tools to design emerging policy frameworks (testimonial1). The novel research model employed builds research teams that integrate academic, policy and practice participants within a collective journey of (re)-discovery maximising reflective practice and social learning.

Summary of the impact

With its origins in work commencing in 2004, research within the Centre for Sport, Physical Education & Activity Research (SPEAR) since 2010 has helped guide and inform national interventions and policy to increase physical activity and sport participation among less active young people by identifying the processes most successful in increasing such participation. Specifically, the work has: (a) provided a rationale for government (Department of Health) and commercial (LloydsTSB) investment in school sport initiatives targeting the least active; (b) contributed to the wider evidence-base used by policy makers; (c) contributed to programme improvements in Change4Life School Sport Clubs and National School Sport Weeks (NSSW); (d) impacted on young people's engagement and physical activity levels.

Summary of the impact

Since the 1990s, academics at the University have focused on coaching and coach education as a key area of interest, and have had substantial impacts on practice within these areas through an on-going process of research, dissemination and engagement. Through intrinsically applied work, the group initially employed an interdisciplinary approach to the development of the academic curriculum to train coaches and other sports practitioners through under- and postgraduate programmes. However, as engagement with practicing coaches increased, the approach increasingly moved from sport pedagogy aspects of coach education towards examining the cultural and historical perspectives of this practice, and into the psychosocial elements of coaching practice. Through a nexus of research and engagement, the group has directly influenced coaching standards and guidelines, and stimulated improvements in practice and practitioner debate. In particular, this has led to impact on UK coach education provision, for example through development of accredited coach education programmes for two national coaching agencies SportsCoachUK and the Football Association by members of the interdisciplinary research team.

Summary of the impact

As a consequence of research carried out at the University of Stirling as set out in this case study, monitoring and evaluation of sport for development programmes has been enhanced:

• Organisations (NGOs/charities) in Africa and India have developed more systematic programmes for the monitoring and evaluation of their work;
• Project workers have acquired the knowledge and skills to be able to use quantitative and qualitative research techniques to design, collect, analyse and report evaluation findings;
• Monitoring and evaluation has become an integral component of sport-for-development work in the organisations that participated in the research;
• UK funding and sponsoring organisations have adapted approaches to supporting sport-for-development programmes and overseas organisations to include monitoring and evaluation.

Summary of the impact

The importance of this impact relates to how it changed policy and practice in regard to spatial division in Northern Ireland's contested society by linking planning, regeneration and reconciliation. Beneficiaries include: north Belfast communities (33,000 population) which have a new planning framework and knowledge to improve their regeneration; a network of reconciliation agencies, which has endorsed a policy manifesto based on the research; the main government department concerned with planning and development which has embedded reconciliation into its legislative and core policy framework, and Belfast City Council, which has been guided about how best they can tie their `good relations' strategy to their emerging powers around planning and regeneration.

Summary of the impact

Research pertaining to the concept and theory of regional competitiveness has permeated economic development policymaking in the UK and overseas. Economic development policymaking has become increasingly devolved from the national level to government decision-makers at the regional, city and local level. This has required such policymakers to establish new strategies, modes of assessment, and marketing plans to facilitate and promote economic development. Cardiff's research has helped to transform the perception, activities and strategies of decision-makers through the provision of new concepts, methods and metrics for assessing regional competitiveness. The research has equipped them with the tools required to establish robust evidence-based policymaking within a knowledge economy.