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Elleke Boehmer's archival research into early Indian migration (1870-1950) has enhanced public understanding of the cultural impact of migration, challenging common assumptions of its historical impact in Britain and assisting better-informed public discourse. Her work demonstrates that the effects of one of the major immigration flows to Britain were on balance more constructive than threatening, increasing and improving cultural interaction rather than reinforcing or exacerbating colonial divides. Disseminated through a Government Forum, travelling exhibitions, film and installation, radio broadcasts, and public lectures, her research has improved the evidence base for civil servants, policy makers and cultural commentators interested in the impact of immigration on identity formation.
The British Asian Theatre Project (2004-2009), involved researchers from the Centre for Performance Histories and Cultures. The project charted and disseminated the cultural history and heritage of British Asian theatrical practitioners, enriching appreciation and preserving the heritage of British Asian theatre, partly by enabling theatre professionals to possess their own history more securely. Research findings were presented as part of industry debates, informing theatrical development. This led to a further research project, `The Southall Story' (2011-2013), which is documenting the cultural history of the art forms and political movements among the British Asian communities in Southall. There is further funding via the AHRC Follow On grant scheme for a touring exhibition and performances, emerging from `The Southall Story,' in the source culture of India, and on to Thailand. These projects are preserving and disseminating this public history through a public digital archive, and series of community and arts events in the UK and internationally. All the research is supported by AHRC funding, awarded after a rigorous peer-review process.
The case study looks at interreligious engagement made possible by an `axis' between Heythrop College and the multicultural world of Southall, West London. The impact falls mainly into two types. The first is generated by the activities in and around Southall, focused on developing new forms of religious expression and the potential for change in religious practice and interreligious understanding in the local area. The second flows from a project that brought together a number of individuals from different religious traditions to learn how to practise the skills of interreligious relations. The impact includes personal and professional development as well as the processes of learning with and between persons from different religious communities in a variety of contexts.
Research at GCU led to a novel method for backfilling pipeline tunnels providing the ability to fill tunnels three times more quickly than the traditional method resulting in a cost saving of £1.5M on a single project. This approach is now best practice at Murphy Pipelines Ltd (MPL) and features in current tenders to a value of £30M. The change in fill material lowered the carbon footprint by 5000 tonnes in a CEEQUAL award winning project, in addition, the removable fill material allows the recycling and re-use of tunnels, adding to the assets of the company and reducing costs.
Dr Meena Dhanda's research on caste identity and prejudice, through publications and public lectures, was instrumental in the campaign to include caste as a protected characteristic in the UK Equality Act 2010. The resultant Section 97 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, enacted in 04/2013, made it mandatory for the Government to devise a secondary legislation amending Equality Act 2010 to include caste as an aspect of race thereby giving hope of legal protection to victims of caste discrimination. Her primary research on caste identity, a Leverhulme Research Fellowship 2010-12 (Reference 6) inaugurated a comparative (UK/India) discourse on the subject and informed the debate for legislative change. Likewise, Reference 1 informed public debate on gender quotas in the Indian Parliament.
Research led by Susheila Nasta challenges the dominant perception that multicultural Britain is a post-Second World War phenomenon, and demonstrates that the early histories of South Asians in Britain are relevant to contemporary issues of British Asian and global citizenship. Built on partnerships with national and international collaborators, this research has reached and influenced large numbers of people through two major touring exhibitions (one in the UK, one in India), extensive online and broadcast dissemination, and direct engagement with policy-makers. In the process, this research has had a major impact in transforming public awareness of this integral element of Britain's past.