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The most significant impact of the REAL (Raising Early Achievement in Literacy) programme of research has been the increased literacy engagement of over 150,000 young children in the UK and internationally, which has been achieved through direct influence upon practitioners, charities and families. The underpinning research demonstrated how young children's literacy development could be enhanced through work with families, particularly in disadvantaged communities. The impacts of the research during the assessment period have been recognised through the inaugural 2013 ESRC Outstanding Impact in Society Prize (awarded to Nutbrown May 2013) and the 2012 Children and Young People Early Years Award (awarded to NCB November 2012).
Since 2005, Dr Quick has created a series of practice-as-research projects and educational workshops to increase understanding of how new media-based performance is created and understood. Key beneficiaries have been young people, teachers, theatre practitioners, mixed media artists, and cultural organisations. Five new works have impacted through the introduction of innovative practice performance to new audiences, nationally and internationally (including central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Brazil and Taiwan); pioneering new uses of digital technology as creative practice, and sharing such innovation with both established and new theatres and groups.
University of Huddersfield research into Lady Anne Clifford and her Great Books of Record has led to wide-ranging new awareness of a key figure in regional history, women's writing and political and cultural engagement. Supported by extensive dissemination efforts, including an exhibition, a series of public lectures and numerous media appearances, the work has helped inform the broader popular debate about the period in which Lady Anne lived, especially in terms of challenging cultural and gender stereotypes, and has generated both local and national interest in her life, her achievements and her continuing significance. The tourism, heritage and culture industries have benefited as a result.
Community cohesion emerged as a distinct policy agenda in the aftermath of the 2001 disturbances in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham and was subsequently shaped by events including the London bombings of 2005 and large-scale migration from the EU and beyond. Researchers in the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) have delivered a programme of research and evaluation exploring cohesion and the effectiveness of service responses. Beneficiaries have included government departments, devolved administrations and other local, regional and national public agencies. Awareness and understanding have been sensitised, lessons learnt have informed strategy, and guidance has directed improvements in practice.
Work undertaken at the University of Manchester (UoM) has provoked debate, and challenged established lines of thought, by `myth busting' current claims about racial diversity and segregation — such as `Britain is becoming a country of ghettos' — which have hitherto dominated public and policy debate. A sociologically-informed demographic approach, developed at UoM, has been adopted by local authorities for monitoring neighbourhood population change and ethnic diversity. Additionally, research findings have been used by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), national policy-makers and local government to promote alternative, sociologically-informed understandings of race, segregation and diversity, challenging the current policy focus. Taken together, these twin interventions have resulted in increasingly critical and robust examinations of race, segregation and diversity, both nationally and locally.
There is strong policy interest in more effective ways to increase citizen engagement, including time contributions and the donation of goods. Research undertaken at the University of Manchester (UoM) has stimulated debate around localism and the `Big Society', directly influencing central and local government policy. Specifically, the research has shaped debates on the role of `nudge' mechanisms in the generation of the `civic goods' that underpin effective public service delivery, with impact demonstrated in two ways. Firstly, documenting and mobilising civic participation (volunteering and donations) through the use of innovative field experiments, including Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs). Secondly, demonstrating an influence on policymakers through clear illustrations of the rigorous and scalable methodologies that underpin the research.
The Centre for Food Policy (CFP) at City University London uses applied research to develop `public interest' approaches to understanding the relations between food systems and consumers. A key focus is the tension between `food citizenship' and consumerism. Our research has long asked how food policy-makers can address and improve citizenship interests when faced with both `old' social divisions (inequalities, poverty, poor market access) and `new' pressures (energy-water-biodiversity footprints, environmental knowledge deficits, de- and re-skilling). Our impact has been in promoting policies to reshape the conditions for good, low impact consumption through: (a) generating high-level debate about sustainable diets (what to eat) at population and individual levels; (b) identifying and mapping the cultural and spatial realities that shape consumer choices; and (c) foregrounding the challenge of health literacy. CFP proposals have gained traction in food policy locally, regionally and internationally (including Europe, the USA and Australia), helped by our long and close relations with civil society organisations (including the United Nations) and with growing impact on government and companies, including the major supermarkets.
This case study focuses on impact achieved through the widely-seen performances by GW Theatre of Mike Harris' commissioned play about extremism, From One Extreme to Another, in schools in the UK. The project:
This report discusses the impact of the work by Rudge and Gilchrist on the relationship between fuel poverty and poor health.This work has been used as evidence on the health effects of fuel poverty by consumer and advisory groups, NHS groups, UK central and local government and various overseas organisations.
Rice's research in various aspects of slavery and the black Atlantic (1750-2010) has facilitated museums in the North West to use their internationally important collections to make innovative exhibitions; his research engages artists, performers, schoolchildren, community groups, civil servants and documentary filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. His work on Transatlantic black presences in the North was instrumental in the development of outputs that range from a commemorative public performance in Leeds (2009), through an exhibition catalogue in Manchester (2011), public debates with American broadcasters at the International Slavery Museum (2013) to lectures to Civil Servants (2012) about black presence beyond London.