An expert report on the economics of drug policy has been written to help governments around the world limit the damage of drug trade. Nicholas Kitchen reflects on how to determine the impact of such an interdisciplinary and multifaceted academic coordination effort. As universities look for neat ways to codify impact, service delivery to the UK government has taken centre stage at […]
Category: Impact
Digital humanities platforms set to challenge technical barriers to digital research skills development.
Digital humanists are becoming increasingly aware of the potential for much wider impact through ‘crowdscribing’ and other innovative approaches to digital research. Emma Goodwin provides further information on a new initiative DHCrowdscribe that allows early career researchers to gain from resources and expertise to support technical project development. This approach will also foster wider collaboration between the humanities and other more […]
The characteristics of pedagogical development in the fields of science and technology
Particularly in STEM disciplines, targeted teacher training is often neglected. Maria Clavert argues why pedagogical development in technical fields should emphasise the academic dual identity of a teacher-researcher. Furthermore, her findings suggest training was most effective with academics who were already open to alternative pedagogical concepts and looking for ways to change their teaching practices. Teaching should become everybody’s business and the disciplinary […]
Embracing our (non-scholarly) identities: The benefits of combining engagement with moral activism.
The characteristics and lack of boundaries in social media present clear opportunities for scholars to engage communities in analytical dialogue. Many scholars feel pressed to remain morally neutral, so it can feel risky to engage in such commentary. But Brent E. Sasley and Mira Sucharov find there may actually be intellectual and social justice benefits to exploring insider identities and […]
The internationalisation of academic publishing points to distinctly different audiences for scholarly books.
The importance of book publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities may be widely accepted, but what is the evidence of their impact? Frederik Verleysen and Tim Engels discuss the ways in which specific publications can have broad societal impact by catering to different audiences. Their recent study on the internationalisation of scholarly book publishing points to the broad spectrum of scholarly […]
In Morocco and abroad, universities are more than just a financial investment, they can instil collective belonging.
In Morocco, high unemployment rates among university graduates, the expansion of private vocational schools, and weak political support for public universities have all affected the university’s role in shaping the wider collective good. Shana Cohen outlines how the current policy situation is limiting the nature of academic impact in Morocco. The more complex, but perhaps more important, issue for institutional […]
Book Review: Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings
Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings’ book maps the life of philosopher Walter Benjamin from beginning to end, tracing the roots of his thought all the way from his early childhood to his seminal work as part of the esteemed ‘Frankfurt School’, and ultimately to his last months in Paris. The biography is very well written, featuring sparse, elegant prose – a lot […]
Participatory arts projects have the potential to reconnect communities with politics
The vocabulary of ‘social return’, ‘intellectual productive capacity’, ‘economic generation’ may well grate against the traditional values of the arts and culture community but it is a shadow that cannot be ignored. But suggests the true value of the arts lies more in how it responds to the rise of disaffected democrats. In a time of increasing political disengagement, especially amongst the young […]
Clicking on the real: telling stories and engaging audiences through interactive documentaries.
An interesting thing about contemporary media is just how much of it is factual. From journalism to social media, YouTube to reality TV we are surrounded by media that claims to be true. Often this content has a definite agenda; it wants to persuade us, make us click, join in and pass it on. How can we understand our changing […]
The lack of reward mechanisms for public scholarship severely limits the future of public engagement in the academy.
Scholars are increasingly expected to consider the wider public in their teaching and research activities, but with little to negative promotion incentive. In fact, finds Christopher Meyers, much of what academics do does not fit into the standard boxes of teaching, scholarship and service. Perhaps it’s time to replace these categories with a single holistic and qualitative standard: High quality teacher-scholars, wherein all of one’s professional activities are […]