Impact case study database

Cathcart’s unique historical research insights [1- 6] have led to him being invited to advise policymakers and the media in the UK, the US and in Seoul on the breadth of China’s relations with North Korea. A central element of this advisory work has been to augment understanding of what is driving North Korea’s policy of trade and interaction along its northern frontier, and whether its regime will adopt the Chinese model and eventually open up its economy to foreign investment.

The current environment has increased the demand for knowledge which provides context on North Korea's ability to evade sanctions along the Chinese border, and which fleshes out the detail of Chinese-North Korean relations generally. Between 2013 and 2017, North Korea undertook an escalating series of steps to build and test its nuclear and missile arsenals, leading to a series of United Nations sanctions which required buy-in and active participation from the Chinese side. Many officials believe China is the key to solving North Korea’s problem and that more pressure from the Chinese would bring North Korea more sincerely to the negotiating table. Cathcart’s expertise was called upon during this time to provide advice [text removed for publication]. The impact of his research can be seen in [text removed for publication] media interpretations and representations of the North Korea-China relationship.

i) Advising UK governmental departments

[text removed for publication] Cathcart participated in multiple Cabinet Office roundtables and presentations sponsored by the think tank RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) to provide expertise and policy options on North Korea [E]. He has further participated in dialogues with North Korean diplomats in Parliament and at the British Council, worked closely with former UK Ambassadors to North Korea (including a debate on 1 February 2018 at the Cambridge Union) and given presentations at the Palace of Westminster which were sponsored by the House of Lords.

[text removed for publication]. Cathcart has advised the South Korean (ROK) Foreign Ministry, travelling to Seoul for an invited presentation in September 2016 and a structured debate on Sino-Korean relations (in Chinese) with top analysts from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). [text removed for publication]

[text removed for publication] Cathcart’s insights into how political purges in Pyongyang impacted on trade policy with China led to his invitation to the Korean Economic Institute, a think tank in Washington DC which sought his ‘expertise, language skills, and experience [to] definitely elevate’ a series of public lectures and reports [F]. His fieldwork and assessments of Chinese-language reports on PRC crisis preparations for a Korean contingency crisis have been drawn on by Whitehall think tanks [E], and an influential annual report to the US Congress on China’s foreign policy included references to his work [H].

iii) Informing media representations

Cathcart has played a prominent role in shaping media representations of North Korea for the British public and international audiences. Cathcart was guest twice on the BBC Breakfast couch in May and June 2018 and helped audiences to interpret the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. He was on air for 25 minutes while the events unfolded in real time, and also discussed his co-edited book on North Korean politics [4]. He has been interviewed over a dozen times since 2013 for the Washington Post, the paper of record on Capitol Hill. His own journalistic work for NK News, a site which provides intelligence on North Korea, has brought more documentation about North Korean firms working on Chinese territory into public awareness.

Cathcart is also the founder of the website SinoNK.com. This influential website, with 714,000 total views during the assessment period and a Twitter following of 9,200, is maintained by a scholarly collective of young Sinologists and Koreanists dedicated to documenting and analysing the borderland between China and North Korea, the nature of transnational ties and the history of Northeast Asia. Cathcart’s leadership of this group has led to a range of publicly accessible articles and influential tweets on North Korea and the border since 2013, including multiple references by The Economist (2 Feb. 2013; 21 Dec. 2013; 20 Feb. 2014; 5 Sept. 2015) to his work on the Chinese response to Kim Jong-un’s policies. In 2015, the Washington Post bureau chief in Seoul tweeted: ‘Everything @adamcathcart writes, I read’, and in 2013 Cathcart, who has 11,200 Twitter followers, was included among the top 100 ‘Twitterati’ in the magazine Foreign Policy.

Gould’s research led to three interconnected impacts through his contribution to the preservation of tangible and intangible South Asian community histories in the UK: i) the prevention of the redevelopment of the India Club as a luxury hotel in 2018; ii) the successful appeal against the closure of the Ambedkar House Museum; and iii) the move to establish a permanent national Partition Commemoration Day at part of a new South Asian Heritage Month.

i) Prevention of the redevelopment of the India Club

The India Club, based at 143 Strand, and founded in 1951, is regarded as an important site of South Asian heritage in London with connections to one of the main historical movements of anti-colonialism in the UK. The India League, the premier organisation linking Indian politicians in 1930s India to British MPs, was led by VK Krishna Menon who became High Commissioner in London, Indian representative to the UN and eventually Minister of Defence. Shortly after independence the India League and India Club hosted visits by Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord and Lady Mountbatten and a range of other political and cultural figures. Today, this history remains significant to many Indians in the capital.

The current owners of the building that houses the Club planned to redevelop it as a luxury hotel closing down the Club in the process. A campaign to save the Club was launched by its managers, who approached Gould to write a report exposing its historic and cultural value. In May 2018 the present building was refused listed status, on the basis that although the India Club is the successor to the India League, the present building is not the one occupied by its 1920s predecessor.

Gould’s combined research on 1940s-50s anti-colonialism, Indian independence and Indo-British relations [1, 3, 4] formed the basis for his 8000-word heritage report to Historic England [C]. Through the Report and in its aftermath, Gould’s research was pivotal in demonstrating that the India Club’s current site was a primary hub for the main South Asian diasporas into London from the ‘50s, and crucially, that it developed out of the India League. Armed with Gould’s Report and a mass petition, the family that currently manages the India Club persuaded Westminster City Council to reject the planning application to change the function of the building. The Westminster Council’s decision (31 July 2018) stated, ‘Notwithstanding Historic England’s conclusion that the application site is not the building originally occupied by the India Club, it is still linked to the India League and is considered to be of cultural significance’. This conclusion was drawn specifically from Gould’s report, which was also noted by the Club’s Manager as having played a ‘central role in our campaign highlighting the cultural and historical significance of the India Club’ [B].

As part of the campaign the managers of the India Club organised an online petition alongside Gould’s Report, and which as testament to its importance to Indians in the capital and elsewhere, gathered over 32,500 signatures.

The campaign to preserve the India Club received extensive print and online media coverage, much of it acknowledging the importance of Gould’s contribution. For example, The Times (9 October 2017) described Gould as ‘key to the defence’ of the India Club in its fight for survival. The Guardian (20 May 2018) quoted Gould’s view on the historic evidence surrounding the India Club as a key site for 1960s South Asian migrants to the UK. Crucially, The Hindustan Times (1 August 2018), connected Gould’s research on the India League and the statement of Westminster Council about the League’s importance to the Club [D]. Social media interest in the campaign and its successful outcome was also high with @saveindiaclub tweeting its thanks to Gould for his ‘invaluable role’ in it [D]. Tweeting support over 2017-19, there were a number of high profile supporters too, including the author Will Self, the Indian politician/celebrity Shashi Tharoor, David Harries OBE, the BBC News education correspondent Sean Coughlan, and Jo Maugham QC.

In January 2019 the National Trust launched ‘Home Away from Home’ an exhibition about the Club alongside a documentary film and a programme of public events informed by Gould’s report and his wider research (See https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/a-home-away-from-home-the-india-club). Additionally, Gould advised on the content of the exhibition guide booklet [ A]. The Programme Coordinator with responsibility for developing the exhibition observed that ‘The historic report has been invaluable in understanding the significance of the Club.’ [A]

An additional benefit, confirmed by the Manager of the India Club in July 2019, was that the success of the campaign to save it had led to the building being designated an Asset of Community Value [B]. Such status ensures that the Community Right to Bid can be used if the building ever comes up for sale and there is sufficient interest from the community in raising the funds to try and purchase it. In January 2021, the landlords served a notice to the managers to vacate and this is currently being contested in the courts. The tenants again contacted Gould on 25 January 2021 [B] as a key academic contact and he is currently helping to mobilise other academics, community groups and the media to support the on-going campaign to protect the site.

ii) Successful appeal against the closure of the Ambedkar House Museum

Gould was one of three witnesses, and the only historical witness, for the Ambedkar House Museum, London during the hearing in September and October 2019 to appeal the decision of Camden Council to close it down. The significance of Dr B R Ambedkar to the Dalit community worldwide is enormous (over 200 million in India alone), and 10 King Henry Road, where the Museum is based, is seen as pivotal to his heritage. He is not only viewed as the primary intellectual and political figure for these communities, but also the ‘father of the Constitution of India’, and is honoured in the names of political institutions across India. 10 King Henry Road was inaugurated as one of ‘5 places of pilgrimage’ for Ambedkar by India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in November 2015 (see, NDTV, 15 November 2015, at https://www.ndtv.com/india\-news/pm\-narendra\-modi\-inaugurates\-ambedkar\-memorial\-in\-london\-1243419\)

During the hearing, Gould acted as the expert historical witness, for which he provided a 4000-word research-based Proof of Evidence (POE) document [I], under cross examination. His evidence pivoted on research that demonstrated the key importance of Ambedkar to British as well as Indian history, via his key interventions in constitutional changes through the late 1910s to the 1940s. This was rooted in Gould’s research on the nature of Scheduled Caste organisations that lobbied and mobilised around constitutional structures in the colonial period [1, 6], research which had also led to him appearing on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Beyond Belief’ to discuss the role of Ambedkar in India’s independence, in August 2017. Gould’s research on India’s constitutional affairs in the 1940s [1] and on the political, constitutional and intellectual career of Ambedkar, the drafter of India’s Constitution, informed his POE [I]. At the hearing (25 September 2019), Gould’s POE was pivotal to the appeal case in stating the importance of Ambedkar to Indian visitors, the Government of India and to the UK Indian diaspora. It was highlighted as central in the appellant barrister’s summing up and acknowledged by the High Commission of India who manage the Museum [I]. Specifically: i) the barrister used Gould’s work on the interconnection between economics and social/political thought in Ambedkar’s work on Dalits to undermine the Camden evidence. He was able to show that Ambedkar was not ‘simply studying economics’ while at 10 King Henry Rd. as argued by Camden but developing economic thought was closely linked to his wider constitutional and political campaigns; ii) the barrister used Gould’s POE to demonstrate that Ambedkar was already a key figure in India’s constitutional negotiations by the mid 1920s and was involved in social reform movements while in London; and iii) the barrister made use of Gould’s detailed research on the career and intellectual interactions of Ambedkar to prove that he must have stayed at 10 King Henry Road as his main residence in London. Throughout the entire preparation for the case, the barrister also drew extensively on Gould’s expertise and research [G]. As a result, the appeal was recovered for the Secretary of State for Housing’s determination because of its importance and was successfully upheld with planning permission granted on 12 March 2020 [F].

The Secretary of State’s principal point in his decision was that he ‘agreed with the Inspector’s analysis at IR53 about the significance of Dr Ambedkar as a major figure in Indian and British History’ [J]. In paragraph 55 of his decision, the Inspector concluded that ‘The evidence of Ms Dass and Professor Gould on the importance of this period of residence at no.10 in the evolution of Dr Ambedkar’s philosophy and of its linkages to his later achievements is convincing.’ In addition, in paragraph 56, he suggested that the historical and spiritual link between Ambedkar and no. 10 were ‘widely perceived, especially among people of South Asian heritage. This is explained in the evidence of Ms Dass and Professor Gould’ [J]. Ken Hunt, a member of the public at the hearing who spoke on behalf of the appellants in open questions, tweeted directly to Gould on 13 March 2020, ‘The part you played was vital. You brought perspectives on the subcontinent’s history that only an academic could bring - and the passion and steadfastness that only someone grounded in social and equality principles could. It was illuminating.’ Santosh Dass, one of the other appellant witnesses who worked alongside Gould in preparing the case, tweeted on 13 March, ‘William @willgupshup, your contribution was magnificent. And only we know how much work and research went into building our carefully constructed case for the museum’. The Secretary of State for Housing’s own tweet expressing pleasure for his role in saving the Museum received over 5.6K ‘likes’ and 2.1K retweets [G].

3. Campaign for permanent Partition Commemoration and educational resource development

Gould co-led a national project (2018-19), which aims to enhance public histories of South Asians as part of mainstream British history. Building on his work in [1] alongside Dr Sarah Ansari, he inaugurated and led the ‘Education Group expert panel’ strand of a project to establish a permanent National Partition commemoration in the UK on 17 August, and to promote the history of Partition and South Asia in school curricula in the UK. The initiative started in a Houses of Parliament meeting involving TV celebrities, two MPs of British Asian heritage and representatives of the Amritsar Partition museum. The campaign coordinator emailed Gould on 30 July 2018: ‘It seems looking at the responses that you and Sarah [Ansari] are clearly the people who are best placed to take this forward.’ [E]. Gould was subsequently invited speaker to large meetings at the Manchester Central Library (17 August 2018), and the Houses of Parliament (5 February 2019), which developed the ‘South Asian History Month’. In these events, and on the ‘Education Group’, Gould’s expertise on Partition and its longer-term relevance, especially in [1] has been pivotal. The research has also specifically changed two key educational resources designed by the project for use in Schools KS 2-3. The first, ‘Never Set Eyes on the Land’, a downloadable toolkit resource providing English, History and Drama-based activities was created by Nutkhut, a mixed performance and creative learning company dedicated to bringing British South-Asian stories and histories to life. The resource was repurposed as a touring installation and selected for inclusion in the Staging Places exhibition of theatre design at the Victoria and Albert Museum (July 2019 - January 2020). During its development the downloadable toolkit was reworked with Gould and Ansari’s advice to include more detail on how to present Partition violence in the pack. Nutkhut’s Learning and Education Manager, who made amendments to the resource based on Gould and Ansari’s interventions, reported to Gould that it was ‘invaluable to have access to such expertise’ [H].

For the second, Gould provided historical assistance to the University of Oxford-based team developing ‘Project Dastaan’ a large-scale VR project which records the home towns of partition migrants for those who migrated enabling them to return home again in a virtual sense, and which forms a central online resource element for schools exploring Partition [E].

Ball’s Role

The Director, Allied Museum appointed a new international advisory board specifically to assist her in generating the original and rigorous concepts that would underpin the Tempelhof Projekt. Tempelhof both looms large in German imagination (Nazi showpiece, centre of Berlin Airlift) and is physically huge: it required analysis and creativity. Ball was asked to challenge historical orthodoxies, to enable the museum to become bolder, and thus to make the whole Tempelhof plan feasible.

Specific impacts of Ball’s research**

1. Shaping the museum’s bid to the cultural commission

Ball’s ‘Vision for the Future’ [Corroboration C, A] challenged the need to limit the museum in terms of scope and approach. Ball’s research provided one of the key bases for discussion at the International Advisory Board in November 2013; he was also able to discuss his research at length with the Director in Berlin. These discussions shaped the revised bid to the federal cultural commission. As the Director wrote, Ball’s contribution was an “important stimulus”. [B] The bid was submitted in June 2014. According to the Director: “Ball’s research had a significant impact on the BKM [federal cultural commission] bid.” [1, 2, 3 & 4: A, B, C, E]

2. Contributing to the success of the plans to link museum sites

In October 2013, Ball helped draft the so-called Magna Charta of Liberation Route Europe. Ball drew upon his research to warn against the tendency to merge intentions and outcomes. The Magna Charta formed the basis of a successful bid to secure start-up funding for Liberation Route Europe from the European Union. [1, 2, 3: A, D, F]

3. Changing the design and content of museum exhibitions

Ball’s work with the Tempelhof project in 2013 and 2014 was reflected in the philosophy behind three exhibitions that the museum developed during the bidding process. The Director wrote that the museum developed “specific exhibitions that would make the new research-based focus [advocated by Ball] tangible.” [A]

1. In July 2015, the AlliiertenMuseum opened its LRE launch exhibition – Liberation Route Europe: Routes of Liberation: European Legacies of the Second World War*. The title – stressing routes, rather than one route, was explicit acknowledgement of the impact that Ball’s research findings had on the project. (1: D, F, A]

2. In August 2015, the curators consulted Ball in the early planning stages of Cold War Berlin in 100 Objects and incorporated the nexus of military planning and intelligence operations he was researching. The Berlin press coverage of Cold War Berlin in 100 Objects was significant for the museum’s Tempelhof plans. [1, 2, 3, 4: G, A]

3. In October 2015, the museum launched Who Was Then a Nazi? Ball had suggested the de-Nazification topic as a means of highlighting the trans-war period that played such a large part in his own research. This exhibition was well received in both the German and international press, in the month before the Tempelhof bid was approved. [1, 2, 3: C, A]

4. Problematizing the traditional museum narrative

The museum’s curatorial, exhibit, and overall narrative strategy, changed to go beyond the “thank you and goodbye” content of previous exhibitions. Ball’s research contributed to this major shift of direction and achieved what the Director had requested: it problematized the traditional museum narrative. She wrote: “Ball’s research had a transformative impact on my understanding of British military and security policy.” [A] The curators decided that all future exhibitions must be “multi-perspectival” („Multiperspektivität“ lautet das Konzept). The Director concluded: “Ball’s research had a very significant impact on the campaign to enhance the appeal of the Museum.” [1, 2, 3, 4: A, H]

5. Contributing to funding successes

In November 2015, the federal government accepted the museum’s application to become the New Allied Museum at Tempelhof and allocated the €27.1 million that would enable its creation. [1, 2, 3, 4: E, I, A] In the wake of the successful bid, Ball was asked to renew his role with the museum, and continues to work on the implementation of the Tempelhof project. As the Acting Director of the Museum wrote: “I just can say that you are the only Military Historian on the Board and that I really think that your input and opinion would be very helpful in the coming five years, 2017-2022”. [1, 2, 3, 4: J]

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Policy

King’s research into the history of fatherhood (outputs 1, 2, 3) influenced government policy and the work of professionals implementing social policy:

• In 2018 it was used by the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee and cited in a report on ‘Fathers in the Workplace’ (source C), which noted it showed ‘the ideal of a man working full-time to support his family is powerful and long embedded’ and ‘government policy therefore has to overcome rigid social norms about gender roles’.

• It improved awareness and confidence of social work, childcare and health workers. In 2014, King delivered a training session for Warwickshire County Council on the history of fatherhood and ways to engage fathers. Of 27 attendees from these sectors, 25 completed a questionnaire (source A), with many now planning to change their practice by ‘looking at what is cultural pressure rather than best for child’, ‘to ensure the father is involved in the process’, and ‘try and engage more fathers’. On a scale of 1 to 5, the training increased delegates’ scores from 2.9 to 4 on confidence in engaging with fathers and 3.1 to 4.2 on awareness of good practice.

• In 2015, King co-created a resource pack with West Yorkshire Probation Service (WYPS), which challenged the idea that men in the past were ‘distant’, and normalised men’s role involvement with children. Of eight probation workers surveyed (source B), all agreed or strongly agreed this resource would ‘help to engage and motivate men on supervision in their role as fathers’. This research has enhanced WYPS’s research capacity and helped utilise men’s identities as fathers to change probationers’ behaviour.

King’s research into death and dying (grants 1, 2) has contributed to Leeds City Council and NHS public health policy:

• Since 2015 King has been a founding member of the Leeds Dying Matters Partnership, part of the national Dying Matters campaign. King used her research in an exhibition, artistic work (below) and public engagement events to deliver the Partnership aims to encourage planning for dying and death (source I). This approach encouraged discussion where it might be difficult (in a Council survey, 48% of people (n=815) believed that ‘people around me are uncomfortable talking about death and dying’, but 78% (n=819) want to talk about these subjects).

• NHS Leeds South and East Clinical Commissioning Group also used King’s research to improve public communications on bereavement, including on Better Lives blog ( https://betterlivesleeds.wordpress.com/).

• King gave a talk at the AGM for Leeds Bereavement Forum (2016) and co-curated their annual professionals’ conference, as well as running a workshop (2017). This encouraged professionals (from hospices, bereavement and counselling services, NHS) to consider using historical research in their practice. 26 of 27 questionnaire respondents agreed ‘exploring the past is a useful way of opening up conversations around death and dying’. Qualitative evaluation demonstrates the conference allowed professionals to reflect on historical roots of their work: comments included that King’s workshop ‘Really made me reflect’; ‘Enjoyed this. Can relate to practice’ (source J).

Museums

King’s research has influenced professional practice in museums:

• Research into the history of childbirth (outputs 2, 3) and digital methodologies (grant 3, output 4) led to work with Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds, and community group, Bahar AFG (migrant women from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt). Workshops involved recording stories, images and objects related to childbirth, later published on Yarn (http://yarncommunity.com/projects/2\), adding to the Thackray’s collections on childbirth and allowing them to feature a greater range of experiences. Through evaluation it was noted that:

• The women were more likely to visit the Thackray and other museums, and felt more confident in discussing women’s health. All scored between 8 and 10 out of 10 (on a scale of ‘not at all’ to ‘very much’) when asked if they ‘had been able to share information which matters to them’ and all scored 9 or 10 out of 10 when asked if the project had make them think differently about using digital tools.

• The group leader noted an increase in confidence among the group and a decrease in embarrassment, stating ‘I noticed they started opening up and sharing some stories and experiences so it was kind of a barrier being broken down and an increase in confidence’ (source D).

• The curator noted the subject of childbirth allowed collaboration with community groups and people from diverse cultures/backgrounds, previously difficult. She reported that King’s research, on childbirth and using digital tools, was a ‘massive advantage’, ‘without that understanding we’d have struggled to present that to audiences’, and ‘the impact of the project on the museum’s development has been huge’. This has allowed them to redevelop their digital strategy, and contributed to their successful applications for museums accreditation and funding from Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund and Wellcome Trust. She suggests the project is a model for good practice (source E).

• King’s research on death, remembrance and family archiving (grants 1 and 2, outputs 5 and 6) instigated an exhibition at Abbey House Museum, Leeds, on ‘Remembrance’ (March 2018-Feb 2019), co-curated by King, PDRA Jessica Hammett and the curator at Abbey House. The exhibition allowed museum visitors to reflect on remembrance and demonstrated diverse practices of remembrance across different social groups. This allowed visitors to reflect on their own practices and opened up discussion of death.

• 31,602 visitors engaged with this exhibition and the museum has commented on unprecedented engagement with its interactive activities: 363 people (including international visitors) added postcards to the exhibition in response to the question ‘How do you remember?’ (source F, G).

• Exhibition events reached a further 103 people, and public engagement beyond the museum, such as four market stalls across Leeds in 2017-18, reached c.200 people. At Kirkgate market a visitor noted 'I didn't think I had anything meaningful until you were just speaking then. But I do have something [to remember a relative with]'.

• The curator notes they never would have tackled this subject without King’s research. It allowed them to rethink the museum’s role in instigating difficult conversations and it changed their approach to displaying materials and incorporating interactive sensory experiences (source G).

• The exhibition was the subject of King’s appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and Dublin City FM (both April 2018), and featured in the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post.

Artists

King’s research on remembrance (grants 1, 2) has deeply influenced two artistic projects:

• The Grief Series, Part 6, is a caravan full of stories and reflections on using places to remember. The caravan invites participation by adding to a map and an audio archive, using the historical approach inherent in King’s research to drive audience interaction with the art.

• The lead artist notes (source H) that King’s research has ‘made me ask questions about authorship when charting the histories of more marginalised communities’, and ‘working from historical source material has allowed me space free to play with ideas before inviting the participation from the public. This both allows me to more rigorously interrogate ideas and therefore [I have] been able to look after participants better.’ She adds: ‘working with Laura has changed the way I approach researching projects.’

• The caravan has been on tour internationally reaching c.2850 people to date (2018-19), including participants in related workshops. The caravan has facilitated reflection on how people remember and want to be remembered and also helped them talk about death, something which remains difficult for many (source H).

• Artists from Mexican organisation Faro de Oriente participated in a two-week residency in Leeds, in part funded by King’s research (grant 6). The Faro artists noted it allowed them to ‘reflect on the utility of a tradition’, showing increased historical ways of thinking and appetite for research and engagement with academics not present previously.