Results and submissions : REF 2021

A Good Death? Enriching Perspectives on Dying Well in End of Life and Bereavement ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Societal
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

‘A Good Death?’ uses historical death literature to facilitate challenging engagements with ideas of death and dying today. Creative resources, workshops and activities empower participants and encourage personal and professional development in a range of settings. The project has influenced behaviour and attitudes amongst two key beneficiary groups as well as wider publics: (i) death-adjacent medical and care practitioners and volunteers and (ii) creative artists. The project involves creative and care professionals in engaging directly with literary-historical research in order to co-create literary and artistic materials and tools for use in their professional practice. Participants gained self-reflection and more nuanced perceptions around language and expression in relation to death and dying.

2. Underpinning research

Since 2016 Dr Davies’ research has focused on the relationship between developments in English prose and attitudes towards death and dying in eighteenth-century life-writing. In a joint publication with Dr Emma Salgård Cunha she examines death tropes within a range of genres including apocalyptic sermons, lay religious poetry, diaries, and works of satire [ R1]. Contributing to an emerging interdisciplinary field of death studies, Davies has developed a ‘poetics of death’ – a means of identifying the ways in which the form and structure of texts generate rather than simply represent meaning – in order to articulate how we can engage with death as that which cannot be empirically known, and as a phenomenon both individual and universal.

Methodologically, this work attends to grammatical, narrative and formal structures, genre and intertextuality, and draws on conceptual and philosophical frameworks of performance, excess, and the aporetic. By her examination of literary responses in which moral readings of death exist alongside a recognition of its disruptive ambiguity, and death is conceptualised as both imminent and immanent, she has explored the historical mutations of the ‘good death’ trope and has challenged existing understandings of the possibilities of eighteenth-century prose [ R2, R3]. She has also shown that the work of writing can function as a form of preservation, not in spite of, but rather through the challenge of capturing the corporeality of a once-living subject on the page [ R4].

A central tenet of this research is that literature is shaped by death but can also influence attitudes to and experiences of it. It identifies, for the first time, a range of ways in which writers engage with death (whether to hold it close or to push it out of mind) through narrative, even though it cannot be empirically known to them, or described as first-hand experience. It seeks to reveal cultural complexities that are obscured by the dominance of narratives of secularisation and emergent modern liberalism within historical and literary scholarship on this period. In this respect Davies’ research has revealed significant intersections between eighteenth-century and contemporary engagements. But, in contrast to the richness and complexity of the earlier tradition, an interdisciplinary academic conference convened by Davies and Salgård Cunha demonstrated that today the topic is often approached with reluctance and that ideas about ‘a good death’ tend to be less diverse and nuanced, and often homogeneously medicalised or euphemistic [ R1]. Indeed, although ‘dying well’ is an urgent topic in discussions of ageing, palliative care and bereavement, a 2016 literature review concluded that there is ‘little agreement about what constitutes good death or successful dying’ and has called for further ‘research and dialogue’ on the subject (Meier et al., ‘Defining a Good Death (Successful Dying)’, American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 24 (2016), 261-71).

This project responds to these insights according to three principles derived from Davies’ research: (i) an individual’s perception of a good death is shaped by the vocabularies, conceptual frameworks, and narrative and representational materials they have experienced (ii) literature is a valuable resource by which to encourage individuals to reflect on their understanding of death and to open up new possibilities without being prescriptive; (iii) guided close reading of literary texts (both historical and contemporary) provides a forum to build confidence, resilience, and resources for discussion, which benefits individuals who work with the dying or bereaved.

4. Details of the impact

The project has engaged end-of-life care professionals, volunteers, creative practitioners and local communities in a series of varied and expanding activities to enrich perspectives on dying well through literature.

Advising practitioners and delivery of professional services

In January 2019, Davies and Salgård Cunha convened an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Dying Well’, connecting researchers from a range of academic disciplines with specialists working in non-academic fields (palliative care, general medicine, bereavement support, psychotherapy, religion) [ E1]. A nurse attendee wrote: ‘[The conference] has certainly challenged my way of thinking and is helping me to consider the value assumptions we bring to end of life care as clinicians’ [ E1].

Subsequent focus groups with medical students and end-of-life-care specialists (March-April 2019, including representatives from Arthur Rank Hospice Charity (ARHC) and Cruse Bereavement Care, confirmed that despite recognition by practitioners that literature and creativity are valuable in end-of-life care there is a lack of workplace training and support in this area. The project has created resources and workshops to help meet this need .

Feedback from Cruse bereavement counsellors, 24 of whom attended death literature workshops in July 2019, indicates that the project has been of direct benefit to their practice. One participant wrote ‘[I will take away] thinking more deeply about the meaning of words […] I’m very motivated to follow this up with further reading’ [ E2, p. 2, p. 3]. Follow-up workshops (March 2020) included intention-setting and creative writing exercises to facilitate attitudinal change and promote reflective practice. Participants noted: ‘It was very enriching. It opens up reflective exploration which could be useful with clients’ [ E2, p. 1]; ‘I might make the fortune tellers with my clients – I see children and young people as well as adults for Cruse’ [ E2, p. 4]. Additional feedback and reflection included: ‘I might try to write a poem! And then encourage my clients to use words poetically to express their feelings’ [ E2, p. 5] and ‘[I’ll try] looking at nouns, verbs, adjectives in poems re. death – another way in!’ [ E2, p. 12].

The project collaborated with ARHC to provide ‘enrichment and reflection to [their] staff and volunteers’ through Continuing Professional Development (CPD) workshops, delivered online during the pandemic [ E3]. ARHC engages approximately ‘200 members of staff and 650 volunteers … in a range of patient and non-patient facing roles’ [ E3]. The project ‘supported volunteers in feeling comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions and the literature focus allowed people to open up’ [ E3]. One participant noted: ‘[I am] prompted to think more about the unique role that poetry can play with individuals or their friends and family are faced with a life-limiting illness’ [ E3]. Reflecting on the significance of this collaboration, the Voluntary Services Manager said: ‘The “A Good Death?” project is interesting to us because it allows our volunteers to discuss death in a way which is informal, relaxed and non-intrusive … The very concept of a good death is central to the work we do and so exploring it through a focus such as literature felt like an exciting way to discuss an important topic’ [ E3].

Reaching beneficiaries through theatre, and impact on theatre professionals

The Co-Director of Menagerie Theatre collaborated with Davies to create new dramatic works connecting her research to COVID-19. Written and recorded during lockdown, three original short audio plays ( Seven Arguments with Grief, End of Life Care – A Ghost Story, A Look, A Wave) were released online on 8th September 2020, generating local media attention [ E4]. These are freely available on the project website as one element in a range of original resources designed to foster public conversation about literature, creativity and dying well (on average 392 website users per 30 day period as at 08.12.2020) [ E4].

The collaboration ‘fundamentally influenced [the Director’s] creative practice’ [ E5, p. 2]. He added: ‘Reading [Davies’s] work on Johnson [...] helped me to think about this whole perspective of language […] around death and particularly tenses [and] the impossibility of describing it’ [ E5, p. 4], concluding ‘one thing I picked up on from Laura’s work […] is to try […] to formulate a language, a vocabulary for death’ [ E5, p. 8].

The plays were incorporated into two online workshops (November/December 2020) bringing artists together with clinical professionals and end-of-life practitioners to ‘explore the imagery, metaphors and existential facts of death’ [ E5, p. 2]. Participants included practitioners from Cruse (Cambridge, West Suffolk and North Wales), ARHC, and Lifeline (A Cambridge mental health helpline). A medical student attendee reported: ‘The play is just brilliant and set lots of thoughts going about vocabulary and the ability/inability to express that is forming the central part of this research project.’ [ E5, p. 2]. A participant added: ‘I also really benefited from hearing from the guys at Arthur Rank around life storying [...] I wish this kind of thing had been available in my nurse training’ [ E5, p. 14]. Another noted: ‘It really reminded me how interconnected the arts and caring roles are’ [ E5, p. 13].

Community enrichment: promoting reflection on death and dying

Public events facilitated enriching conversations about death in different cultures within local communities. Feedback consistently indicated that participants had acquired new knowledge and changes in perspective [ E6, E7 and E8]. In January 2019: a live roundtable conversation between a hospital doctor, Christian minister, philosopher, researcher in Islamic perspectives on medical ethics, and palliative care matron, attended by approximately 100 people. A participant valued the ‘[c]ross cultural perspectives on death and religion especially amongst shared decision making vs. autonomy’ [ E6, p. 2]. A two-day event at Cambridge Central Library (July 2019), in collaboration with the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), engaged 114 people in conversation, with 381 accepting a printed poem and 12 attending a workshop. One attendee, an organiser of the local ‘Dying for Life’ group noted: ‘A number of us (from quite diverse backgrounds) were pulled together… [it] has undoubtedly broadened my perspective on the subject’ [ E7, p. 1], and a nun participant commented: ‘Poetry seems particularly apt for the expression of ‘deep’ vari-layered experience’ [ E7, p. 2]. A collaborative event with the Duckworth Laboratory and the MAA targeted young adults (November 2019, 123 registrations [ E8, p. 1]). Attendees noted ‘interesting similarities across cultures’ and that ‘[d]eath [i]s [an] opportunity for very lively creativity and culture’ [ E8, p. 3].

AI narratives: shaping public debate, policy and cultural responses to the future ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Societal
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

‘AI Narratives’ investigates the representation of artificial intelligence (AI) in fictional and non-fictional narratives. Through media appearances, public-facing fora and popular publications, participation in cross-sector dialogue, and collaboration with a range of stakeholders, including Boeing and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Dr Dillon’s and Dr Dihal’s research has led to impact on policy, society, culture and media. The project alerted policymakers and industrial partners to the influence of narratives on perception of AI technologies, and to their importance for the development of public policy and regulation. It also engaged with other beneficiaries – including media professionals, creative practitioners, scientists, and citizens – in order to enhance critical reflection on AI narratives and AI itself.

2. Underpinning research

Dr Dillon and Dr Dihal both have long-standing research interests in literature and science, science fiction, and narrative forms. These interests inspired the AI Narratives project (2017-2018), based at Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) in collaboration with the Royal Society. Dr Dillon was Programme Leader, seconded for a year from the Faculty of English, while Dr Dihal was the post-doctoral researcher.

The project’s interdisciplinary research explored how AI has been and is currently portrayed in fictional and non-fictional narratives, incorporating methodologies and insights from, and contributing to, literature and science studies, science fiction studies, science communication studies, and history of science. Dillon, Dihal and others studied the limitations of prevalent fictional and non-fictional narratives to suggest how practitioners at the intersection of disciplines might move beyond those limitations. They also aimed to raise global awareness of the power of AI narratives, and to encourage public attention to the role they play in the research, regulation and reception of AI technologies.

The major publication arising from the project is AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking About Intelligent Machines (OUP 2020) [R1]. This edited collection contains a co-authored introduction and chapter contributions by Dillon and Dihal, and fourteen chapters by other contributors. The book is the first to map the history of imagining intelligent machines in this way. It makes the case that AI narratives are a social, ethical and political issue, shaping the technical field, and the acceptance and regulation of the resulting technology. It is based on the premise that contemporary thinking about AI can usefully be informed by considering the role and influence of stories, old, new, and emerging. The book presents the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines in the Anglophone Western tradition in two parts. Part I covers antiquity to modernity, each chapter focusing on a specific historical period. Part II takes up the historical account in the modern period, focusing on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in which a greater density of narratives emerges alongside rapid developments in AI technology.

The edited collection is a centrepiece, but the project members have published an additional range of research findings in diverse forms and with diverse methodologies. These include new theories of the relationship between literature and science [R2], a critique of the gendered nature of AI rhetoric [R3], surveys of public perception of AI [R4], a taxonomy of hopes and fears around AI [R5].

Dillon has developed the AI narratives research further, with postdoctoral research fellow Dr Olivia Belton, in a case study investigating societal perception of AI-enabled flight, funded by Boeing (2019-20). The project produced a qualitative critical taxonomy elucidating existing thematic associations with autonomous flight as evidenced by science fiction literature and visual media. It also deployed narrative as research method, developing and trialling a collaborative storytelling game, played in focus groups, to understand and assess non-expert perceptions of autonomous flight [R6]. The findings revealed that technical failure, trustworthiness and climate anxieties are key to autonomous flight perception, and the research demonstrated the usefulness of narrative methods in assessing anticipatory assumptions and understanding technological futures with diverse stakeholders.

3. References to the research

R1. Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal and Sarah Dillon, ed., AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); includes co-written introduction and essays by both Dillon and Dihal.

R2. Sarah Dillon, ‘On the Influence of Literature on Science’, Configurations 26:3 (2018), Special Joint Issue with Journal of Literature and Science: State of the Unions (Part 2): 311-16. doi:10.1353/con.2018.0027 URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/698847

R3. Sarah Dillon, ‘The Eliza effect and its dangers: from demystification to gender critique’, Journal for Cultural Research, 24:1, 1-15 (May 2020), DOI: 10.1080/14797585.2020.1754642

R4. Stephen Cave, Kate Coughlan, and Kanta Dihal. ‘“Scary Robots”: Examining Public Responses to AI.’ Proceedings of AI Ethics & Society (July 2019). https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3306618.3314232

R5. Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal. ‘Hopes and fears for intelligent machines in fiction and reality.’ Nature Machine Intelligence 2 (February 2019): 74-78. DOI: 10.1038/s42256-019-0020-9

R6. Olivia Belton, Sarah Dillon, 'Futures of Autonomous Flight: Using a Collaborative Storytelling Game to Assess Anticipatory Assumptions’, Futures (2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2020.102688.

All these publications arising from the project research were peer-reviewed at scholarly journals or a major University Press. R1 is a field-defining essay collection covering a comprehensive history of AI narratives (and a REF2021 output submission); R2 is a position piece, part of a special issue describing the state of the field; R3 is a specific case study on AI rhetoric, narrative and gender; R4 and R5 provide overviews of the field derived from surveys of public opinion (R4) and fictional representations of AI (R5); R6 is a peer reviewed publication on public perceptions of autonomous flight, presenting the results of an exploratory study of non-expert anticipatory assumptions through collaborative storytelling games.

Royal Society 2017, September 2017 – August 2018, GBP2013.10, Grant number 2017/138 RG91897, Dillon Principal Investigator

The Boeing Company, GBP92,294.97, Grant number 2018-STU-PA-343, Dillon Principal Investigator

AI and Gender, 2019, The Ada Lovelace Institute, GBP8,500. Dillon Co-Investigator

AI and Gender, 2019, PwC, GBP3,000. Dillon Co-Investigator.

Global AI Narratives – Sub-Saharan Africa Workshop, 2019, Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA research grant, GBP5,000. Dillon Principal Investigator until July 2019, from then Dihal Principal Investigator.

Global AI Narratives: Reframing current artificial intelligence narratives through fostering international perspectives and networks, 2019, Templeton World Charity Foundation, December 2018 – December 2022, GBP174,954.33, RG98757, Dihal Principal Investigator, Dillon Co-Investigator until May 2019.

Global AI Narratives Project, 2019, DeepMind Ethics & Society, December 2018 – December 2021, GBP175,000, G104648, Dihal Principal Investigator.

Diversifying Artificial Intelligence Narratives. 2018, ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, GBP20,000, Dihal Principal Investigator, Dillon Co-Investigator.

4. Details of the impact

The AI Narratives research was disseminated across a broad spectrum: a range of broadcast media, including Dillon’s contribution to Radio 4's 'Today' programme on 30th December 2017; Dihal’s TedX talk in Thessaloniki, ‘Is the Robot Rebellion Inevitable?’ on 21 April 2018 (400 audience members plus livestream, now on YouTube) [E1]; involvement in the 2019 ‘AI: More Than Human’ exhibition at the Barbican (88,811 visitors in London; it then moved to Groningen in 2019, but closed due to COVID, and was due to open in Liverpool in 2020) [E2]; and Dihal’s essay ‘Ancient Dreams of Intelligent Machines’ in the Arts section of Nature (2018), which had a top 5% Altmetric impact score, and was recommended on ‘In Our Time’ (BBC Radio 4) [E3] (p. 3). The article influenced the work of technology company DeepMind (owned by Google / Alphabet Inc.): their Roundtable on stimulating effective public debate on the ethics of AI was shaped around the essay, with the Briefing Paper quoting it as an epigraph [E3].

Impact on Cultural Life and Professional Practice

This dissemination programme created further opportunities to engage in artistic and commercial contexts. In 2018, Dihal advised 2030: Crowded Room, an art installation by Crowded Room at the Junction Theatre in Cambridge as part of the Collusion 2019 Showcase. Made in collaboration with technologists and informed by conversations with young people in Cambridge, Kenya and Nepal, it challenged audiences with the risks of AI [E4]. The exhibition attracted over 1,750 visitors from diverse backgrounds (46% non-white British), including 29% of visitors who do not usually engage with the arts (attending once a year or less) [E4] (p. 24). One participant reflected: ‘Does generate different thoughts and ideas regarding technology and its role and perception in today's society.’ [E4] (p. 24). A user-experience designer at Cambridge Consultants, an innovation and technology-based consulting company with projects in over 20 countries, further noted: ‘One of my biggest takeaways from this project was the necessity of creating technology that’s readily available for everyone. I realised how important it is to consider the needs of the whole of society rather than for one demographic or group of people’ [E4] (p. 29).

The project’s research contributed to, and informed talks and panels at, CognitionX (CogX) 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. The participant count of CogX grew from 1,500 in 2017, to over 20,000 visitors in 2019, and 44,000 in the virtual meeting in 2020. CogX brings together attendees each year from research, business, industry, government and the public [E5]. One of the cofounders of CogX, and the UK government’s AI business champion, notes that ‘the work of the AI Narratives project … gave the community the language with which to talk about what the future of AI could look like. Their research has been central to framing the conversation for people, enabling fruitful discussions between industry, academia, and government’ [E5]. She also notes, in her capacity as a popular science communicator, the influence of the AI narratives research on her book How To Talk to Robots (2020) which ‘is aimed at women and girls, who remain underrepresented in the artificial intelligence industry. How to Talk to Robots draws on the research of the AI Narratives project, and […] include[s] the project publication AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking About Intelligent Machines in its further reading list’ [E5].

Dillon and Belton contributed to the discourse on AI and Futures Literacy on 16 December 2019, when they contributed to a public-facing UNESCO Futures Literacy Forum in Paris. The event attracted over 400 participants, including Futures Literacy practitioners, designers, facilitators, teachers and researchers from around the world [E6]. Participants in the lab, based on the Boeing research, discussed the complex social issues and potential benefits of AI through storytelling. The Head of Futures Literacy at UNESCO noted: ‘the lab designed and implemented by Dr Dillon, on the basis of her pioneering work in this area, generated a significant step forward for UNESCO and the global community interested in gaining a better understanding of the role of the future in what people see and do’ [E6].

Public Policy and Civil Society

The AI Narratives research informed UK government policy, through the House of Lords AI Select Committee, the AI Council (an expert committee of independent members from industry, the public sector, and academia, which provides high-level expertise and priorities to the UK government), and learned societies. The Chair of the Council remarks: ‘I... can attest to the fact that Dillon and Dihal’s research has been a contributing factor to the UK Government’s policy on AI. The AI Council has a working group on “narratives”, the creation of which was directly influenced by my engagement with the AI Narratives project’ [E5]. In 2017, Dillon, Dihal and other members of the AI Narratives team gave an oral presentation to the House of Lords AI Select Committee. The Chair of the Committee calls the input of the project team ‘revelatory’ [E7] adding ‘We had not considered the impact of fictional narratives on the public perception in artificial intelligence in such a manner before’ [E7] (p. 188). Following receipt of written evidence from the AI Narratives team, the Select Committee report (Chapter 2, ‘Engaging with Artificial Intelligence’) focuses on ‘the public’s understanding of, and engagement with, AI and its implications, and how it can be improved’ [E7] (p. 25).

The project’s research further informed the programme and content of the Global Governance of AI Roundtable at the 2019 World Government Summit (Dubai). The GGAR sub-committee ‘AI Narratives: Underrepresented Narratives’ was included as a direct consequence of the work of the team. Dr Dillon served as the Expert Group Chair for the sub-committee [E8]. A November 2018 Royal Society report was co-authored by the project team. Portrayals and Perceptions of AI and Why They Matter was aimed primarily at policymakers [E9] (pp.1-28). The report has informed civic debate around AI narratives in the field of Knowledge Management, with RealKM Magazine, for example, using it to inform discussion of the question ‘Is the popular narrative harming development of AI?’, explaining the importance of the report in ‘understanding why distorted narratives emerge’, as well as making key ‘recommendations for practitioners to adopt to improve matters’ [E9] (p. 30).

Impact on industry

In the Boeing-funded project, Dillon and Belton investigated public perceptions and stories of autonomous flight. Autonomous flight, and particularly AI-controlled aircraft, has been depicted in science fiction for decades, but the technology is still far from widely available. As Boeing notes: ‘Dr. Dillon’s research effort on Social Perceptions of Autonomy will help us in future research and development efforts around autonomous systems and strengthen our focus on the human aspects’ [E10]. Through collaborative storytelling workshops the project critically reflected on avenues for understanding emergent technology, essential ‘in the perception and acceptance of autonomous flight’ [E10]. To this end ‘Dr. Dillon’s report was received very well and helped multiple groups within Boeing understand the perception considerations when building and operating autonomous aircraft. We look forward to leveraging findings from the work’ [E10].

Book culture outside the academy: enhancing professional performance and influencing ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Cultural
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

Dr Da Rold’s research on medieval handwritten culture, the close examination of medieval manuscripts, and in particular on the use of paper in book production, has contributed to the design and delivery of two MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Course). The ‘community enrichment’ value of this dissemination is evinced by the range of beneficiaries it reached, including teachers, curators and librarians, calligraphers, retired people, families taking the course together, and postgraduate students. It influenced professional practices, provided access to traditionally unattainable training, and enhanced the well-being of private individuals who were able to pursue their interests.

2. Underpinning research

Da Rold’s research pioneers new ways of looking at manuscripts and materiality. It questions established methods and opens up new ways of thinking about codicology (the study of the book as a whole) and palaeography (the study of medieval handwriting), especially in relation to the dating and production of medieval books. It also puts book history in its social and cultural context as part of a wider holistic framework for the study of medieval literature. Da Rold’s research employs a variety of methodologies, some looking broadly across European traditions, others presenting case studies within individual national and local milieus. For example, ‘Codicology, Localization and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud. Misc. 108’ studies the social and cultural context of the circulation and transmission of one manuscript to inform a discussion of local production practices [R1], while ‘Medieval Manuscript Studies: a European Perspective’, a collaboration with Marilena Maniaci, looks at broader geographical trends and scribal practices [R2]. Da Rold has contributed to the field of Digital Humanities by applying computing methodologies to the study of medieval manuscripts [R3].

These research interests culminated in the recent publication of Paper in Medieval England: From Pulp to Fictions (2020). This book provides a detailed analysis of the coming of paper to medieval England, and its influence on the literary and non-literary culture of the period. Looking beyond book production, Da Rold maps out the uses of paper and explains the success of this technology in medieval culture, considering how people interacted with it and how it affected their lives. In this book, Da Rold discusses how the medieval book changed and renewed both diachronically and synchronically across countries, regions and local production milieus. The close examination of medieval manuscripts, and in particular of the use of medieval paper in culture and society, has shown the cultural significance of the medieval book as witness of the past, as portent for future models of knowledge, and as key to how handwritten culture connected transnational communities and enabled social mobility. This research demonstrates how a painstaking analysis of medieval materiality yields new information on the construction of medieval books, informing our knowledge of how texts were transmitted and circulated, and giving us a broader picture of pre-modern communication practices [R4]. The research was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2017).

The nature of Da Rold’s research is often collaborative, and a recent joint publication with Professor Elaine Treharne (Stanford University) argues for the initiation of a broader international interest in the production of medieval English manuscripts from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, and the enhancement of pedagogical practices in manuscript studies across different periods, languages and specialisms [R5 and R6]. This collaboration and its aims have partly been fulfilled in the two ‘Digging Deeper’ MOOCs, which engaged a wider public, including professionals in a range of fields, in a richer understanding of medieval manuscript culture.

4. Details of the impact

The growing number of online digital images from medieval manuscripts inspired Da Rold and Treharne to design an accessible MOOC bringing their research on the materiality of the medieval book to diverse beneficiaries. In 2014, Da Rold joined in the creation of a two-part course led by Treharne in collaboration with two rare book librarians: Dr Suzanne Paul (Cambridge) and Dr Ben Albritton (Stanford). The course also involved binding specialists and curators from their Special Collections teams. Da Rold contributed to designing the syllabi, including learning outcomes, the bibliography and the selection of the manuscripts for filming. She then contributed video tutorials in her particular field, on paper, codicology and the significance of the codex. Digging Deeper 1: Making Manuscripts (January-March 2015; DD1) and Digging Deeper 2: The Form and Function of Manuscripts (April-May 2015; DD2) were then the first freely available cross-sector online resources covering this material.

[Text removed for publication]. In June 2015, following the period of active certification for both courses, the course completion rate for DD1 was 22%, and for DD2 was 26%, which is well above the average MOOC completion rate of 2-10% [E1]. In the first week of January 2020, 47 active learners were recorded, representing ongoing engagement with the material beyond the period of active delivery of the courses [E1]. Learners enrolled from 124 different countries (including Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Ukraine, Vietnam, and the Holy See) [E1]. Two follow-up workshops were organised in Cambridge by Paul at the University Library, of which one was run by Da Rold in 2015. 48 MOOC participants responded to the invitation and 20 were able to attend the workshop [E2].

The learning resource and the workshops engaged individuals in the heritage sector, informed the professional practices of teachers and education specialists in the delivery of services and teaching, and inspired members of the public to engage with these otherwise inaccessible texts and research outputs.

Impacts on understanding, well-being and access

DD1 and DD2 enabled access to university-level teaching to those without opportunities to learn about manuscripts due to personal circumstances, or lack of access. ‘There is nothing of this sort where I live in rural Northern California’ [E3] (p 10), one learner explained, and another noted: ‘[My] health makes travel difficult. That is one of the reasons why I appreciated your class so much.’ [E2]

The MOOC has been described by a user as a ‘community enrichment course’ [E4]. A retired participant tells us: ‘As a retiree Medieval MSS got me in its grips […] plus [I] put together a couple of superficial lectures on same – presumptive but at seniors’ residences it’s the images as much as the content that is successful’ [E2]. Beneficiaries talk about how ‘This course has opened my eyes to the depth and complexity of the creation of the manuscripts themselves’ [E3] (p 9) and proudly state ‘The biggest surprise to me was how gratifying it was to struggle through the paleography exercises’ [E3] (p 9). Multiple participants noted it enhanced their experiences of viewing manuscripts in museums [E2, E3]. A newsletter item from the Guild of Book Workers emphasises that this ‘form of education allows students from all over the world to participate in classes that would not otherwise be accessible to them’ [E5] (p 10). A calligrapher noted ‘I have been practising calligraphy for a number of years now, so I am attracted to the subject, and my expectations were exceeded’ [E3] (p 21).

Impacts on practitioners and delivery of professional services

DD1 and DD2 helped teachers and education specialists to ‘get ideas for how to approach teaching the material in a classroom’ [E6]. The MOOC also assisted with these learners’ own professional development: ‘it also helped me fill in gaps in my own knowledge’ [E6], as well as offering an opportunity for academics to reflect the benefits of digital pedagogy in higher education – one taken, for example, by a UK lecturer in their work for a professional qualification [E7].

Heritage professionals who undertook the course reported that it developed both professional practice and personal interest: ‘Despite having spent a long part of my professional life working with historical documents, the course has awakened my interest in some details of the making of manuscripts that had gone unnoticed to me’ [E3] (p 5). It was consistently noted that it was the combination of palaeography and technical / structural detail (Da Rold’s special expertise) that made the course so valuable [E2, E3]. A review by a curator, published by the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Work, recognized the importance of the project in encouraging other conservators to ‘keep an eye on online learning initiatives such as this one […] The course offered me the opportunity to learn specialist vocabulary used by manuscript historians, and […] acquire some knowledge about Palaeography, a subject I overlooked in the past’ [E8].

Professionals from Anglesey Abbey (National Trust) worked in groups through the course, and five years later a conservator reflected on the value of the MOOC: ‘For myself, it allowed me to develop my understanding and my skills; I was able to transfer, for example, the palaeographic skills directly into my job working with primary sources. [...] It has already stood me in better stead for job applications and interviews. I know that one colleague who undertook the course at the same as me has used it as a starting point for developing a career in book conservation’ [E9]. She further noted that this learning influenced internal working practices: ‘We were able to pass on our understanding to our colleagues [...] and use it in training volunteer book cleaners’ [E9]. A Special Collections Librarian at the University of Lincoln, seconded to Lincoln Cathedral, writes: ‘The information supplied through the MOOC hugely enhanced my knowledge and confidence in dealing with the Cathedral’s manuscript collection […] I have been able to implement these skills in my career and used the MOOC as a training tool for students and users of the Cathedral collection and in creating displays within the University Library’ [E10]. A Medical Librarian working at Aga Khan University, Karachi explains: ‘I […] am confident that this course will help me appreciate the problems faced in matters of conservation and digitization in a developing country’s context’ [E2].

Deep Time: Public and Media Impacts of Writing About Geology, Politics and the A ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Cultural
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

Dr Macfarlane’s research concerning deep time, mountains and the ‘geological imagination’ has become influential in discussions of ‘deep time awareness’ and geological cultures. The influence and wider contribution of this body of research has shaped public discourse around the Anthropocene, intergenerational and ecological justice, and environmental responsibility. This research has inspired the public, landscape writers, policy makers and organisations, and advocacy groups. It has contributed to the creative economy by means of bestselling books, television/radio, and a globally successful film. It also resulted in substantial public interest in the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd (1889–1984), and this revival has challenged a heavily masculinised tradition of ‘mountain literature’ with a gender-balanced discourse.

2. Underpinning research

Macfarlane’s research stems from the preoccupation that the living world is in crisis, characterised globally by anthropogenic climate change, habitat loss, pollution and mass extinction. These unfolding events will leave legacies of harm that persist far into the (post) human future. The crisis exists in part due to narratives of human mastery over the natural world, which treat it as passive ‘standing resource’. ‘Deep time’ refers to the immensities of geological time as it extends into the Earth’s past and future. For seventeen years Macfarlane has been researching and publishing on questions of ‘deep time’ in relation to geology and mountains.

In 2003 Macfarlane published Mountains of the Mind (Granta/Pantheon; London/New York; translated into 10 languages **[R1]**), which explored the ‘revolution of perception’ concerning mountainous landscapes that occurred across Britain and Europe between the late18th and early 20th centuries. Mountains of the Mind connected this ‘revolution’ to geology’s emergence as a science in the late 1700s, and the revelation of the Earth’s ‘deep time’ histories and futures accompanying its discoveries. In 2011 Macfarlane produced a new edition (with a substantial introductory essay) of Nan Shepherd’s account of the ecological and deep-time existence of the Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains, The Living Mountain (1977) [R2]. This is unusual among works of mountain literature because it is by a female writer, and also because it does not fetishise the summit as the main goal of mountaineering. It rather celebrates pilgrimage and meditation as an approach to mountainous landscapes. In 2014 Macfarlane edited a new edition of Shepherd’s poems, In The Cairngorms (1934), again contributing a foreword essay [R3].

In 2019 Macfarlane published Underland: A Deep Time Journey [R4], the writing of which was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship. Underland represented the capstone of the larger body of work by Macfarlane, undertaken between 2003 and 2019, concerning the relationships of geology, ontology, deep time, and politics. It is based on a series of deeply-researched journeys into underground spaces, from ice caves to burial chambers, and reflections on the literature of such spaces and of deep time more generally. The ethical question at its heart is that posed by the immunologist Jonas Salk: ‘Are we being good ancestors?’ Underland explores the practice of ‘good ancestry’ in light of the ecological crisis (‘The Anthropocene’), and argues for an increased ‘deep-time’ awareness of inter-generational justice and geological cultures [R4 and R5]. In 2019 it became a national bestseller in both the UK and the USA, won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, and was reviewed/discussed in more than 200 print and broadcast venues worldwide.

4. Details of the impact

Commercial and social impacts

Mountains of the Mind and Underland have had ‘big commercial impact’ in the publishing economy, nationally and internationally (noted by Macfarlane’s literary agent) [E1]. Mountains of the Mind (2003) ‘continues to sell steadily in the UK’ [E1], and ‘since reissuing The Living Mountain as part of [the] Canons series in 2011, the book has gone on to be a perennial bestseller on the Canongate list, [text removed for publication]’ [E2]. Underland (2019) has been translated into 24 languages (Arabic, Catalan, Complex Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish)[text removed for publication] [E1]. The popularity of these publications led to collaborations with film-makers, conservationists, television/radio producers, and musicians on cross-media projects, which have contributed to the work of organisations and communities, especially concerning climate emergency and cultural representations of landscape.

A reader’s published response to Macfarlane’s ‘Generation Anthropocene’ [R5] noted: ‘[the essay] made a huge splash among environmental academics, but its appearance in a popular newspaper also brought it to the forefront of public consciousness […] It struck a chord with me in a way that other literature on climate change had not […]I began to make changes to my life’ [E3]. Another reader of Underland comments: ‘It made me finally become active in the fight against climate change’ [E3].

Whilst researching and writing Underland, in 2018, Macfarlane co-edited (with Patrick Barkham and Chris Packham) A People’s Manifesto For Wildlife (PMW), ‘an independent report prepared by 20 leading environmental thinkers’ [E4] (p1). The Manifesto recommended 200 measures ‘that would immediately improve the status or outlook for wildlife in the UK’ (p1); one of its co-authors notes that Macfarlane’s contribution ‘undoubtedly broadened the appeal and relevance of the document’ (p2) [E4]. The PMW, supported and endorsed by the Soil Association, was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) at 10 Downing Street in person by a 10,000-strong march of supporters in September 2018 [E4] (p. 3). As a direct result of engagement with the PMW, one of the co-authors of the manifesto was approached by the CEO of the 9000-acre privately-owned Castle Howard estate in Yorkshire to establish an advisory board to oversee an initial rewilding of 500 acres of the estate, with further wilding efforts planned [E4] (p. 2). In December 2019, the Green Party released their ‘New Deal for Nature’ proposals for a national policy, which declared that ‘Some of the ideas behind our policy recommendations were inspired by A People’s Manifesto for Wildlife (Packham et al. 2018)’ [E4] (p. 64).

Impact on national and international creativity and culture

The Wall Street Journal wrote: ‘[Macfarlane] is the great nature writer, and nature poet, of this generation’ [E1], and the contribution of his research to culture is further demonstrated in the continuing impact of Mountains of the Mind. Its wide reach is evinced by its adaptation into the film Mountain in 2017, with an international release by IMAX in 2018 [E5] (p. 8). The film was directed by Jennifer Peedom, and Macfarlane’s script was voiced by Willem Dafoe. It premiered at the Sydney Opera House in June 2017 with a live performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, ‘The audience creates an additional, parallel, soundtrack, with collective gasps, sighs of relief and, when the feats of daring verge on implausible, incredulous laughter’ [E5]. The film travelled with a live-score performance from the ACO in Australia and New Zealand, and had substantial international release across Europe, Japan and North America. Mountain received several awards, for example, at the eighth Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards [E5]. Federal agency Screen Australia lists Mountain as having achieved the third highest box office revenue of all time for documentaries, grossing AUD 2,030,290, with 87% approval rating on the leading film review site rottentomatoes.com [E5].

Macfarlane ‘was the first writer to champion Nan Shepherd’ [E6], and now her work has become a powerful source of inspiration for creative artists. The 2011 reissue of The Living Mountain, with a long introductory essay by Macfarlane, was brought to national attention through a BBC film ( The Living Mountain: A Cairngorms Journey) about the Cairngorms and Nan Shepherd, authored and presented by Macfarlane. The film aired on BBC Scotland in November 2014, capturing a 5% audience share, and first aired on BBC4 in February 2015, with three repeats and a total audience of at least 475,000 [E7]. In May 2014, Nan Shepherd’s only collection of poetry, In the Cairngorms, was published with an introductory essay by Macfarlane. ‘The Living Mountain’, a BBC4 radio documentary about Shepherd and her landscapes, was featured as ‘Pick of The Week’ on Radio 4 in January 2014, and broadcast again on Radio 4 Extra in January 2019 [E7]. This public exposure then led to Macfarlane’s Upstream (2019), a BBC4 film about the Cairngorms, with an epigraph from Nan Shepherd’s work. It was reviewed in The Guardian as ‘stunning… a timely reminder of Britain’s natural beauty amid the climate crisis’ [E8].

The ensuing revival of Shepherd’s work ‘has sprinted round the world: readers in China, France, Slovenia, Germany, Korea, Catalonia, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Taiwan are now aware of the Scottish author’s existence to a degree unimaginable a few years ago’ (literary executor of Nan Shepherd, who credits Macfarlane with ‘haul[ing] her out of oblivion’) [E9]. Macfarlane’s writing and broadcasting on Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain amplified underrepresented voices in creative writing practices, and in particular women writers. In 2019 Canongate launched the Nan Shepherd Prize, supported and promoted by Macfarlane, to provide ‘an inclusive platform for new and emerging nature writers from underrepresented backgrounds’ [E2]. In March 2020, Macfarlane launched his Twitter Book Club which selected The Living Mountain as the first pick (with over 3,700 likes); ‘he has played a significant role in helping Canongate to revive mass interest in Shepherd and all her books’ [E2].

As a direct result of this revival, Nan Shepherd’s literary executor describes how the reissue of The Living Mountain has ‘a specific link to the 2016 decision of the Royal Bank of Scotland to feature Nan on their £5 note. A member of the selection committee put Nan’s name forward after he took the stand-alone edition on a canoe trip. RBS directors were given copies’ [E9]. She thus became the first female author to feature on a British banknote.

Lost Words: Building and Inspiring Nature Connection, Outdoor Learning and Nature ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Cultural
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

Dr Macfarlane’s research on rediscovering the connection between language and nature influenced the ways in which children and adults connect to the natural world through language. The publication of Landmarks (2015), which then inspired The Lost Words (2017), led to mass participation of primary and secondary schools in learning ‘nature literacy’. The adoption of The Lost Words in care contexts (hospitals, dementia treatment, abuse survivor therapy and programmes for refugees) supported the health and wellbeing of adults. International and UK-based adaptations of The Lost Words in many artistic forms supported creativity, culture, and society and (through sales) the economy, especially the publishing and creative industries.

2. Underpinning research

Dr Macfarlane researches the complex issues surrounding the connections between language, landscape, nature, memory, and travel. Macfarlane addresses these both in his scholarship and creative practice. Inspired by research published in Science by Cambridge conservationists, Macfarlane studies the ‘loss of knowledge about the natural world to growing isolation from it’, and argues for efforts ‘to re-establish children’s links with nature if we are to win over the hearts and minds of the next generation’ [R1]. The award in 2011 of a Philip Leverhulme Prize made it possible for Dr Macfarlane to research and write Landmarks [R2], a book of cultural history and literary criticism about the relations of language and the natural world. Landmarks was published by Penguin in March 2015 and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Non-Fiction Award and the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing.

Through the writings of JA Baker, Nan Shepherd, Roger Deakin, Jacquetta Hawes and others, Macfarlane analyses words and their culture with a keen interest in the lexicography of the natural world. Landmarks shows that the impoverishment of precise referential landscape-lexis has occurred across the linguistic terrains of Britain and Ireland, and makes the case for a need (ethical, even political) for its replenishment, or ‘re-wilding’. It argues for the importance of certain practices of nature writing in reactivating place-sense and place-responsibility in readers. Landmarks seeks to provide a means for such ‘re-wilding’, by rebuilding confidence in ‘lost words’ by means of eleven glossaries, featuring two thousand terms of ‘landscape-language’ from more than 33 languages, dialects and sub-dialects of Britain and Ireland [R3].

This research into the loss of connectivity with nature then prompted reflection on how children connect with nature. How might practices of ‘naming’ and ‘story-telling’ enable not only increases in ‘nature literacy’, but also drive positive change in individuals and communities? Might a common language for nature be ‘re-wilded’ in a manner comparable to large-scale landscape or ecosystem regeneration, leading to positive outcomes for nature connection and environmental amelioration? To answer these questions, in 2017 Macfarlane initiated a collaboration with artist Jackie Morris on The Lost Words: A Spell Book [R2] . In this large-format book, Macfarlane wrote ‘spell’ poems on the names of twenty species from everyday nature which have been falling from use in the texts read and written by British primary-school-age children . The Lost Words was published in October 2017 and won the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for Children’s Illustration and the Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.

4. Details of the impact

Landmarks and The Lost Words have helped redress the loss of both ‘nature literacy’ and nature itself in Britain and beyond, especially in relation to childhood. [text removed for publication] [E1]. The Lost Words has been translated into Welsh, Dutch, Swedish, German, and French. A Publishing Director of Penguin Books notes ‘The success of both books has been extraordinary – and The Lost Words is an ongoing phenomenon unlike any other in the last decade’, [text removed for publication] [E1].

Economic and creative impact

The books have made a cultural and creative impact, with adaptations of The Lost Words generating income for artists, organisations, individuals and institutions involved. These include: a flagship BBC Prom concert at the Albert Hall, broadcast live on Radio 3; Seek Find Speak, an Arts Council England (ACE)-funded ‘outdoor spoken-word performance’, performed for over two years; and Spell Songs, also ACE-funded, a folk-music touring concert and 112 page CD book (shortlisted for the Beautiful Book Award) involving 8 artists. In February 2019, four initial performances (including Birmingham Town Hall, and Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre) sold out, with an audience of 3,165 [E2]. The Project Manager notes: ‘Thanks to Spell Songs, the artists have taken their music to new audiences…their income has increased due to playing bigger venues... as a result [they] are free to create new artistic outputs’ [E2]. [text removed for publication] [E2]. An exhibition, created in collaboration with Compton Verney Art Gallery for venues across the UK, including the Foundling Museum in London and Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh (in partnership with the John Muir Trust), had visitor numbers exceeding 57,000. ‘Essential, gorgeous, thought provoking, full of precious reminders of nature’s treasures’, a visitor noted [E3]. A Newsnight film about The Lost Words and nature literacy has since been viewed more than 3,800,000 times across social media platforms [E4]. The Lost Words was described as a ‘cultural phenomenon’ by The Guardian (p 1) and a ‘revolution’ (p 27) by the broadcaster Chris Packham [E5].

Impact on education, NGOs and childhood

The Lost Words has become a catalyst for the outdoor learning and outdoor classrooms movement in the UK, and a turning point in the ‘re-greening’ of education (especially in the early years). In autumn 2017 Jane Beaton, a bus driver from Midlothian, Scotland, read The Lost Words and was inspired to raise money to donate a copy to every primary, secondary and special school in Scotland, in order to create greater nature literacy and environmental responsibility in Scotland’s children [E5] (pp1-3). Beaton raised GBP25,000 ‘to give the book to all 2,681 schools in Scotland’ [E5] (p 20), and within eighteen months completed the distribution, helped by local councils, individual volunteers and NGOs. Her example inspired more than 20 similar campaigns, covering all of Greater London (c.2,500 schools), 21 English counties, 3 Welsh counties [E5] (pp 5-24). A teacher notes: ‘It’s increased confidence and engagement, particularly in reading and speaking in a class setting’ [E5] (p 27).

Wild places charity the John Muir Trust has ‘adopted a UK-wide ambassador-type role’ for The Lost Words, which inspired the Trust to ‘take a fresh look at literacy and nature’ [E6]. The Trust has built many new initiatives around The Lost Words as part of their work, including running training sessions for education practitioners, and working in partnerships with local councils in Scotland to benefit 3,500 pupils in deprived areas. Through collaboration between the John Muir Trust and the Scottish Book Trust, in June 2018, Scotland’s First Minister selected The Lost Words as part of her ‘First Minister’s Reading Challenge’ [E6]. In May 2019 the Department for Education, England, made a video about the impact of The Lost Words upon one teacher and her teaching, in order to increase teacher recruitment, part of ‘The Teacher Effect’ campaign [E7] (pp 7-8). A user notes: ‘I am also working with the library service to promote #thelostwords through a multi-agency project as a vehicle to connect families & nature to improve health, wellbeing & literacy’ [E8] (p 9).

The Lost Words was adopted in numerous literacy projects and literacy trails around the country, including Bodnant Gardens, Lyme House, and Dunham Massey [E6]. The National Literacy Trust created Lost Words trails in Swindon and Hastings as part of a campaign to ‘tackle intergenerational low literacy in areas of high deprivation’. All primary schools in Swindon were also offered resources to create their own Word Walk. In Swindon (Summer 2018 and Summer 2019) 550 families took part, and in Hastings (Summer 2019) 290 families participated. In December 2018 the National Literacy Trust invited all Key Stage 2 pupils in Swindon to participate in a Lost Words poetry competition [E7] (p 8). The hashtag TheLostWords generated 520,464 Twitter impressions [E6] (p 2), and 3,504 Instagram posts (data captured Nov 2019) [E6] (p 2). Dr Macfarlane’s Twitter feed (@RobGMacfarlane) has received on average 9.5 million twitter impressions per month (data captured May to December 2019) [E8] (pp 24-30).

Contributions to well-being, especially in health-care contexts.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital opened a major new building in 2018; four storeys were decorated with art and poetry from The Lost Words, running floor to ceiling as murals / wallpaper, following a major commission by the Hospital Trust. The art was designed in consultation with physical therapists, to help patients move up and down the corridors using balance-rails as part of their healing work [E9]. Copies of The Lost Words have been donated to publicly managed care homes and ‘Shared Reading Groups’ [E9] (p 6). The book has also been used therapeutically with survivors of domestic abuse, refugee communities, with childhood cancer patients and in Memory Cafes for those living with dementia and related illnesses [E9] (p 7-8). In 2018 a successful campaign raised money to place a copy of The Lost Words in every hospice in Britain (220 hospices). A palliative care doctor and author, who organised the campaign, notes: ‘Together, these hospices treat over 100,000 patients a year, meaning The Lost Words now has the potential to bring meaning and beauty to thousands of seriously ill patients’ [E10].

5. Sources to corroborate the impact

[E1] Emails from publisher 21.10.2020 and 22.01.2020

[E2] Creative performances: testimonial from Spell Songs project manager 15.10.2020; BBC proms 25.08.2019 link; Wild rumpus announcement of Seek Find Speak premiere at 2018 Timber festival link.

[E3] Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, The Lost Words, visitor figures, exhibition details and visitor comments.

[E4] Email regarding BBC Newsnight viewing figures 19.09.2019; social media screenshot with viewing figures.

[E5] Crowdfunding evidence pack: Barkham & Flood, The Guardian, The Lost Words campaign delivers nature ‘spellbook’ to Scottish schools 20.02.2018 link, crowdfunder.co.uk Lost Words website detailing all campaigns link; CBC News B.C students send letters to Oxford telling dictionary to bring back lost nature words 24.01.2019; Friends of the Ashe County Public Library, North Carolina, USA, press release regarding young poets award 18.04.2019; Bushby, Penguin blogs, The Lost Words, one year on, 5.10.2018 link

[E6] John Muir Trust testimonial 01.11.2019; National Trust trails information Dunham Massey, Lyme Park, Bodnant Garden

[E7] Wider literacy initiative: Trail report from National Literacy Trust 2019, The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall website, The Duchess of Cornwall carries out literacy engagements in Swindon, 24.01.2019 link; Gov.Uk Teaching blog and DFE video, Discovering poetry through nature: the Teacher Effect 02.05.2019 link; The Scottish Book Trust, Outdoor reading journeys with the Lost Words; Twitter evidence of First Minister’s Reading Challenge, 20.06.2018

[E8] Twitter figures and feed highlights

[E9] NHS news: The Stanmore Building opens: architecture, technology and art 10.12.2018

[E10] Testimonial letter from palliative care doctor 09.01.2020; evidence of therapeutic uses: Hawkins, ehospice, The uplifting power of nature at the end of life, 23.11.2018 link; Blaxland, Reading Friends, Reading the Lost Words back to life, 02.10.2018; crowdfunder campaign for care homes and reading groups; The lost words in Dorset website link; Booth, Doncaster Free Press, The Lost Words never to be forgotten, 30.03.2019

World Factory and Future Scenarios: developing public understanding and policy through ...

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Societal
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

World Factory (2012-17) and Future Scenarios (2016-present) are connected performance-led research projects in the English Faculty at Cambridge which engage audiences in current and future problems. They provided audiences with new ways of understanding complex issues related to exploitation in the global textile industry, and possible solutions to environmental crisis. Beneficiaries include creative/theatre professionals who have been presented with a new model of participatory performance and a new means of thinking about solutions to the industry’s response to the climate crisis. This research has also reached more than 50 activists, architects, planners, urban theorists, conservationists, and policy makers through engagement at the Oslo Architecture Triennale and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.

2. Underpinning research

Dr Svendsen’s continuing practice-based research project explores the possibilities of theatre that is experimental, political, speculative, and participatory. It was pioneered in the climate change work 3rd Ring Out (2009-11), where audiences interacted in decision-making processes which led to varied possible outcomes. Outputs of the research include major performance pieces [R1-4] and methodological essays discussing approaches [R5-6].

World Factory brought consumers into live interaction with the workings of the global textile industry. This work involved up to 96 audience members in a game, facilitated by actors, in which they played the roles of factory owners trying to maintain profitability and a workforce. With her co-creator Simon Daw, Svendsen undertook a three-year research process, in and beyond Cambridge, both into the structures of the industry and into the development of a participatory theatrical form. Research, development, and production took place from 2013 to 2016, with funding amounting to GBP194,000 (plus approximately. GBP100,000 in-kind). It included a series of residencies, public talks with experts in the textile industry, and exchanges with a Shanghai-based performing arts company (Grass Stage).

The output of this original research was a theatre production, which previewed at, and was partially funded by, the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, and was finalized at the Young Vic Theatre in London in May/June 2015, before touring in 2016/17 to venues in Brighton, Burnley, Cambridge, and Manchester [R1]. It was shortlisted for the Berlin Theatertreffen Stückemarkt Award in 2016. In addition to the performances, other outputs from the research included: the digitally-enhanced World Factory shirt; the World Factory Digital Quilt; and the World Factory book, containing the card game at the heart of the show [R2].

Building on the relationship between participatory theatrical forms and social concerns, Future Scenarios (2016-present) drew on the success of World Factory to address the problems of climate crisis [R6]. This work made people imagine future situations where the necessary steps to avoid catastrophe have successfully been taken. The research was initially funded (2016-17) by a ‘networked’ residency, supported by the University of Sheffield and Jerwood Charitable Foundation. Svendsen was then awarded Artsadmin’s Green Commission 2018. The continuing research process involved extensive consultation, according to a ‘research in public’ methodology, with climate change specialists, economists, architects, and geographers. It broadened to include a wide range of emerging and established artists and directors, through a series of talks and workshops. In total, nearly 3,000 members of the public, students, practitioners, and experts, participated in this development.

The main output was We Know Not What We May Be ( WKNWWMB), a five-day interactive performance installation (5-9 September 2018), presented as part of the Barbican Centre’s Art of Change [R3]. This was a GBP30,000 commission from Artsadmin (matched by GBP15, 000 from the Cockayne Foundation), with an ultimate budget of over GBP100,000 (including GBP47,000 from the Arts Council). The Pit Theatre was transformed into an immersive installation into which groups of 30 audience members at a time were invited to listen to a talk by a visionary speaker (the list included Frances Coppola, Paul Mason, and Kate Raworth), before entering ‘the factory of the future’, where they became actively involved in conversation, speculation, and storytelling, supported by performers. The resulting ideas and scenarios were displayed in the installation itself, feeding back into the performed elements. The success of the event was demonstrated not least by an important commission for a follow-up, Factory of the Future ( FOTF), for the Oslo Architecture Triennale in 2019 [R4], at which development both of the formal possibilities, and of the impact on policy-making, continued.

3. References to the research

[R1] World Factory (2015) https://metisarts.co.uk/uncategorized/world-factory-video

[R2] Svendsen, Z, and Simon Daw, World Factory (London: Nick Hern Books, 2017)

[R3] We Know Not What We May Be (2018)

< https://metisarts.co.uk/projects/we-know-not-what-we-may-be>.

[R4]. Factory of the Future (2019)

< https://metisarts.co.uk/projects/factory-of-the-future>.

[R5] Svendsen, Z. 2017 ‘The Dramaturgy of Spontaneity: Improvising the Social in Performance’ in Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, ed. Georgina Born, Eric Lewis and William Straw (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2017), ISBN: 9780822361947.

[R6] Zoe Svendsen and Lucy Neal, ‘Rehearsing for a climate-changed future: practising not preaching for environmental accountability’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 17 (2012), 289-306, ISSN: 1356-9783 (Print), https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1080/13569783.2012.670427

GBP17,044 Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, 2014-15.

GBP7,000 The British Inter-University China Centre, University of Manchester, 2014-15.

GBP24,950, grant from the Arts Council, World Factory, Spring and Autumn 2014.

GBP59,000 grant from the Arts Council, World Factory in performance, 2015.

GBP57,798, grant from the Arts Council, World Factory UK tour, 2016-17.

GBP15,000, Cockayne Foundation, We Know Not What We May Be, 2018.

GBP47,000, grant from the Arts Council, We Know Not What We May Be, 2018.

GBP30,000 Artsadmin ‘green’ Commission Award, 2018.

R1, R3 and R4 were deeply researched experimental performance projects, which went through a series of peer-review-like processes in their development. They are being submitted in portfolio outputs for REF 2021. R2 will be part of the World Factory portfolio and is an offshoot of the performance project. The underlying methodology is explored in further publications (R5-6) that underwent peer-review and/or editorial processes at journals.

4. Details of the impact

World Factory’s participatory form had clear effects on its audiences in making them think about the state of the global textile industry, and prompted changes in plans and practice among theatre professionals. In April 2015, 562 people attended its first shows at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, before its main run at the Young Vic (including a week’s extension), where 2,432 people attended (97% capacity). There followed a well-attended tour funded by a GBP57,798 grant from the Arts Council and GBP24,000 in fees from venues [E1] (p. 13). As reported to the Arts Council, these performances resulted in 834 days of artist employment, and an extensive programme of educational outreach for schools and higher education (engaging in total 31,663 people through broadcast and online interactions) [E1] (p. 74).

Impact on public understanding

Feedback from these varied audiences conveys the success of World Factory in generating a critical understanding of the global economy. This involved not only the ethical dilemmas facing consumers, but also the complex decision-making and lack of autonomy of the producers. School children remarked: ‘it made me think about the poor conditions people work in’, and ‘[it made me think] how just one decision can change the lives of so many’, but also ‘it made me get a better understanding of the pressure that the factory owners are under’ [E2] (p. 11). A wide array of reviews picked up on this multi-faceted response, and noted an unusual degree of self-awareness. Some had their expectations met: ‘stunning exposé of ruthless transnational exploitation in the clothing industry’ ( Morning Star). More often they noted ways the involving experience led to enlightening and unexpected responses [E2]. Paul Mason wrote in The Guardian ‘what shocked me – and has surprised the theatre – is the capacity of perfectly decent, liberal hipsters on London’s South Bank to become ruthless capitalists when seated at the boardroom table’ [E2] (p. 15).

Impact on creativity and culture

The potential demonstrated by World Factory has changed the way many practitioners think about immersive performance. Talks and workshops disseminated (and continue to do so internationally) the project’s methods for political and participatory theatre. A former Artistic Director of the Young Vic called it ‘extremely likely that other theatre-makers will follow in its footsteps into the new territory that it explored’ [E3]. The project’s collaborators have testified to its influence on their subsequent work: a Director calls it ‘a gold standard for participatory theatre and the dramaturgy of interactive theatre, leading to concrete developments in the practice of many artists including myself […] in new contexts across a number of productions and shows’ [E4].

Developments in Svendsen’s own work further demonstrate the effects of World Factory on thinking among arts organisations. WKNWWMB performed at the Barbican Centre in 2018 to 650 audience members, including 47 young people and others on low incomes ordinarily excluded from the arts; they acclaimed the creation of ‘a space to discuss possibilities’, and ‘the intergenerational aspect felt important’ – a validation of the effort made to diversify the audience [E6] (p. 3). The founder and ex-Director of Artsadmin noted that this work, bringing audience into collaboration with performers and experts, ‘will continue to demonstrate that change is possible’ [E5].

In addition to media talks and debates (including, in November 2018, a BBC Radio 4’s ‘Costing the Earth’, ‘Art and the Environment’) [E7] (p. 6), and workshops for theatre practitioners around the UK, Svendsen’s work led to a substantial collaboration with Cambridge Junction arts centre, which declared a climate emergency in its governing policy, and appointed Svendsen to its Board. The Artistic Director confirms Svendsen’s research ‘has been vital to the development of our strategies, policy and actions […] leading to genuine and practical changes to our delivery of programme and operations, influencing wider communities of peers’ [E7].

Impact on conservation policy and urban planning

As a result of WKNWWMB, the Norwegian government think tank for design innovation (Design and Architecture Norway, DOGA), in collaboration with the 2019 Oslo Architecture Triennale (OAT), commissioned and funded (NOK450,000) its successor, FOTF. This was developed partly during a three-month residency (June-August 2018) at the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI). Through workshops and smaller installations in the public spaces of the building. Svendsen’s work reached the many groups (with links to over 180 countries) for whom CCI acts as a hub: conservation programme managers and directors; museum curators and learning officers; many external organisations including key conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre; and government (Department for BEIS).

The benefit of the collaboration was recognized at an organisational level: CCI ‘will seek to commission more work like this’, having gained ‘a belief in the benefit of process driven participatory activity and the benefits that this type of residency brings’ [E8]. One direct consequence was evident in a 2019 report for BirdLife International on ‘Achieving transformative change’. The first recommendation was to ‘create an ambitious vision for change and tell the story of how that change will be achieved’ (p1); Svendsen’s advocacy for this approach, and especially collaborative investment in stories, is described in the report [E9] (pp. 20, 33-34).

FOTF informed the form and content of the whole Triennale wherein it was installed; the key theme of the event was ‘degrowth’. The Project manager at DOGA and a representative of the Oslo Architecture Triennale note: ‘Dr. Svendsen’s work highlighted to us new ways of engaging different urban stakeholders to work together in developing innovative approaches to urban change’ [E10]. The final work was a video installation for the full two-month duration of the Triennale, involving approximately 50 architects, urban planners and policy stakeholders in its development [E10]. Participants recognised the potential of the methodological shift. The Project manager at DOGA says that the methodology is ‘arguably one of the most appropriate and effective tools we can engage with to create the positive action we need’. The collaboration has enabled their 2020 ‘Future of Rural Districts’ project and provides a knowledge base of how to approach future scenario work [E10]. The collaboration with Svendsen has had ‘a significant influence on how we have gone on to plan our projects in DOGA’s Urban Development initiative’. One participant in the Triennale workshops summed up the reception of FOTF: ‘I see it as a very concrete tool to create change’ [E10] (p. 18).

Young Writers, Student Critics: Enhancing education and inclusion

Submitting institution: University of Cambridge
Unit of assessment: 27 - English Language and Literature
Summary impact type: Societal
Is this case study continued from a case study submitted in 2014?: No

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1. Summary of the impact

Since 2016 the Faculty of English at Cambridge has collaborated with the BBC on the National Short Story Award (NSSA), and with the literary charity First Story on the Young Writers’ Award (YWA). The Faculty’s research expertise in short fiction and critical practice enhanced the reach and impact of NSSA and YWA (1,441 entrants to the latter in 2018-19), and enabled the creation and development of the Student Critics’ Award (SCA). Through festivals, workshops and tailored electronic resources, the SCA and another follow-up project, the Cambridge Festival of Reading and Writing (CFRW), supported social inclusion in reading and critical thinking, and enabled significant impact on educational attainment, reaching more than 50 schools.

2. Underpinning research

Colleagues in the Faculty of English at Cambridge have strong collective research expertise in the field of short fiction, and in the history, theory, and practice of literary criticism. Their research into short fiction attends to its nature, value, and importance, and in particular its history and relationship to more dominant literary forms. In this case study, this focus combines with the Faculty’s special research interest in the emergence and development of close reading as a critical and pedagogical practice. Boddy, Dillon, Houen, Joy, Wilkinson, Thaventhiran, and Wilson, who have participated in the Impact activities described in Section 4, have published on a range of key authors and related issues.

Kasia Boddy published in 2013 a detailed exploration of David Foster Wallace’s first collection of short stories that discusses his engagement with the literary trends of the day (minimalism, dirty realism, yuppy fiction) and with the creative writing workshop culture in which he was educated [R1]. She has also discussed the short story anthology, particularly in the 1930s, as the form which best expressed (and encapsulated) American multiculturalism [R2]. Sarah Dillon’s work on contemporary author Maggie Gee demonstrates how close reading Gee’s short fiction, in particular attending to the changing significance of the title word of the collection Blue (2006), provides access to the key themes and concerns that manifest across her large body of long fiction [R3]. Claire Wilkinson’s research on Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo includes discussion of the short story ‘Laughing Annie’, focusing in particular on the relationship between the story’s structure and new economic forms [R4].

Wilson has researched theories of reading and critical practice [R5], and has contributed, with Thaventhiran, to Houen’s edited collection Affect and Literature (2020). This project studies the experience of reading and how that experience informs the multiple practices of literary criticism [R6]. Thaventhiran’s chapter explores the status of sincerity and the tactics of reading with fake feeling in the history of criticism in the twentieth-century. Wilson’s contribution explores the formation of affect in capitalist societies and its function as a critical force. Thaventhiran’s monograph, Radical Empiricists: Five Modernist Close Readers (2015), presents a new history of close reading criticism in its foundational years [R7]. Part I, ‘How to Read’, pays detailed attention to how critical authority, style and influence operates; Part II, ‘How not to Read’, revisits some tenacious orthodoxies about what critics can and cannot do. Louise Joy’s Literature’s Children: The Critical Child and the Art of Idealisation (2019) discusses pedagogy, close reading, and the child’s emergence as a critic, articulating the relationship between reading and criticism in the experience of child readers and child critics – the latter a category that Joy innovatively articulates and defends [R8].

These colleagues’ research into both the short story as a form for close reading, and the emergence of criticism out of the experience of reading, has thus been able to inform the experience of students – and their teachers – at a crucial juncture in their own development as fully reflective critical readers. Recognition of this expertise in the Faculty brought the collaboration with the BBC and First Story into being; these specialisms have underpinned the partnership throughout; and ongoing research in this area has enabled the impacts which have been catalysed by the partnership.

3. References to the research

R1. Boddy, Kasia, ‘Response is Good: Girl with Curious Hair in Context’, in A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies, eds. Stephen J. Burn and Marshall Boswell (Palgrave, 2013), pp. 23-41, ISBN: 9780230338111

R2. Boddy, Kasia, ‘Variety in Unity, Unity in Variety: The Liminal Space of the American Short Story Anthology’, in Liminality and the Short Story: Boundary Crossings in American, Canadian, and British Writing, eds. Jochem Achilles and Ina Bergmann (Routledge, 2015), pp. 145-56, ISBN: 9781317812456

R3. Dillon, Sarah, ‘Beyond the Blue: The Sorrowful Joy of Gee’, with Caroline Edwards, in Maggie Gee: Critical Essays, ed. Sarah Dillon and Caroline Edwards (Canterbury: Gylphi, 2015), pp. 1-29, ISBN: 9781780240336

R4. Wilkinson, C. L., ‘The Empty Centre of Conrad’s Nostromo: A New Economic Reading’, Cambridge Quarterly, 47 (2018), 201-21. https://doi.org/10.1093/camqtly/bfy018

R5. Wilson, Ross, ‘Reading Habits’, Thinking Verse, 4:2 (2014), ISSN: 2049-1166 http://www.thinkingverse.org/issue04b/Wilson\_ReadingHabits.pdf

R6. Houen, Alex, ed., Affect and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which includes H. Thaventhiran, ‘Feelings under the microscope’, pp. 83-99 and Ross Wilson, ‘“We Manufacture Fun”: Capital and the Production of Affect’, pp. 100-115. ISBN: 1108424511

R7. Thaventhiran , Helen, Radical Empiricists: Five Modernist Close Readers (Oxford University Press, 2015), ISBN: 9780198713425

R8. Joy, Louise, Literature’s Children: The Critical Child and the Art of Idealisation (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), ISBN: 9781472577191

These are all scholarly publications that have been through peer-review and editorial processes at journals or academic presses. They include two major monographs (R7, R8), essays in a ground-breaking essay collection (R6), and articles and chapters making significant interventions in their fields (R1, R2, R3, R4, R5).

4. Details of the impact

This research has led to close collaborations between institutions and schools, leading to impact on education, social inclusion, creativity and culture, with beneficiaries including students, teachers, and young creative writers. It emerges from a collaboration with the BBC initiated by Dillon, to which Boddy, Houen, Joy, Thaventhiran, Wilkinson and Wilson contributed pedagogical material and online video resources drawing on their research expertise, and in the case of Wilkinson, the organization and delivery of new events as detailed below. In particular, the Student Critics’ Award (SCA), which started in 2018, has been an innovative and successful ‘experiential educational project’ [E1] (p. 12), energised by research on the experience of close reading. It encourages students to read literature critically and to build confidence through the wider application of critical thinking.

In 2014-16, Sarah Dillon developed a series of ‘close reading’ segments for BBC Radio 4’s flagship literature programme ‘Open Book’. These examples of intense critical attention in practice ran for two seasons with an average audience of almost 1,000,000 listeners weekly across the UK [E2]. As a result, in Summer 2016, the Head of Books at BBC Radio 4 worked with Dillon to make the Faculty of English, and the wider University of Cambridge, the BBC’s new partner for the NSSA, which included collaboration with the literary charity First Story on the YWA and SCA [E2]. Dillon’s ‘particular specialized knowledge of the genre and of contemporary writing was key to her involvement and her overview and understanding… [was] vital to the partnership’ [E2]. The three-year partnership (2017-20) between the BBC and University of Cambridge has now been renewed for a further three years [E2] (p. 4).

Key events included the First Story Young Writers’ Festival, held at the University of Cambridge in September 2018 and December 2019. In September 2018, the festival brought over 400 young writers and their teachers, ‘from schools in areas that are economically and culturally deprived across England from Lancaster to Hull to Leicester to East London’, to Cambridge for a day’s celebration of creative writing [E1] (p. 17); a second festival followed in December 2019 [E3] (p. 13).

Impact on education and social inclusion

Involving 900 sixth-form students, their teachers and librarians, from more than 50 schools and colleges in 2018 and 2019 [E1, p. 12 and E3, p. 24 ], the SCA shadows the NSSA. Students are given the opportunity to read, listen to, discuss and critique the five shortlisted stories, making use of teaching resources designed to convey Faculty members’ research, both into the short story form and into the history and experience of close reading, in a form suitable for students aged 14-18. These include creative cross-curricular activity ideas, films, and podcasts, and the BBC’s bespoke discussion guide for the shortlisted stories. Dillon led on ‘a guide to how to read better for young people, which the UL [University Library] and the Faculty also contributed to with ideas and resources’ [E2]. This guide is now an ‘invaluable online resource […] available to all secondary schools across the UK and […] disseminated to those schools that take part officially in the Student Critics Award’ [E2].

The diverse schools from across the UK that participated in the SCA included a college which prepared 18 year-olds on a range of academic pathways to re-sit their English GCSE [E1] (p. 12). Some teachers selected ‘lower-attaining students and reluctant readers’ in order to ‘make them feel as if they were “part of a national book club all reading the same thing”’ [E1] (p. 12). A teacher comments that participation in the SCA ‘was such a tonic for students who have been jaded by public examination and sedated by a summer holiday. It energised them and imbued them with a vigour for academic debate that we are still running off weeks later’ [E1] (p. 13). Teachers noted that ‘Every student felt it had enhanced their love of literature and given them access to stories and ideas that they would have ignored otherwise’ [E3] (p. 25).

The impact of the partnership has been furthered through CFRW, three twelve-month long widening participation projects (August 2018-July 2019; August 2019-July 2020; continuing August 2020-July 2021) that work to improve attainment and engagement in English. It centres on a partnership with the West Norfolk Academies Trust (11 schools) [E4], focusing on schools with low progression to higher education, ‘where over 50% students fall into quintiles 1 and 2 of POLAR4 [Participation of Local Areas], and OAC [Output Area Classification] supergroup 8, groups 3a, 3b, 3c, 4b, 7a, 7b and 7c, and subgroups 4a1, 4a2, 4c2 and 6b3’ [E6] (p. 12). Led by Wilkinson, these projects used the resources prepared for the SCA, alongside the annual NSSA shortlist, as core materials. An assistant headteacher from a school in an area of the country with lower progression to Higher Education explains the project’s function as ‘to use University research in English to help students in Years 9 to 13 gain a better understanding of the subject, learn new techniques for analysing literature, and to introduce the students to University level study’ [E4].

From feedback on activities in 2018-19 [E5], 95.65% (44) of students agreed that ‘this project has taught me things I didn’t know before about short stories’, and 78.26% (36) of students agreed that ‘this project has helped make me a better writer’ (p. 3), further commenting ‘This has really expanded my knowledge, both of university life and of English and short stories, authors and my own writing’ (p. 1). 100% of teachers ‘strongly agree’ (40%, 2) or ‘agree’ (60%, 3) that ‘my students feel more excited about reading new writing and better equipped to analyse unfamiliar texts’ for higher-ability students, and 60% (3) of teachers ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that the same is true for average-ability students (p. 5). Teachers’ responses to a range of questions showed >80% of participating students had higher attainment in English (p. 2); all teachers reported increased engagement in English as a curriculum subject as a result of the project (p. 3). The 2018-19 Festival culminated with 67 ‘highly commended’ competition entrants (a small percentage of those who participated through the year) attending a prize event [E5] (p. 1); the 2019-20 Festival of Reading and Writing culminated with a virtual event due to COVID restrictions [E6] (p. 2). A teacher commented ‘this project has been a lifesaver for our English teachers during lockdown! […] We used the complete set of modules with years nine and ten to work on at home’ [E6] (p. 8). An assistant headteacher also noted how this change supported ‘curriculum learning across our Trust, in particular adapting the research provided to our schools during the Coronavirus lockdown to support our students’ remote learning’ [E4], and concluded that more generally the pedagogy that they were able to deliver ‘using Dr Wilkinson’s research has led to concrete benefits for our students, in terms of academic achievement, raising aspirations, and engagement with English Literature’ [E4].

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