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    • Blood pressure targets for the very elderly: preventing strokes and heart attacks in the over 80s
    • Brighton Waste House
    • Cannibalism in early humans: the calorific significance of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic era
    • Childhood asthma and eczema treatment: a personalised approach
    • Coexistence with carnivores: how do we better understand inter-relationships between humans and wild carnivores?
    • Communities of Practice and Value Creation Frameworks: how do we learn from each other?
    • Crowd safety: revolutionising crowd management through a better understanding of the psychology of crowds
    • Delayed umbilical cord clamping: research into the health benefits to babies
    • Design history research: how we help to develop a greater understanding of our global cultural heritage
    • Diabetes patient care: providing life-saving therapy and improved quality of life
    • Faecal-borne diseases: research provides life-saving advances in disease control
    • Food recycling: waste solutions through city-scale food recycling policy are developed and tested in China
    • Football4Peace...Rugby4Peace: how sport is bringing intercultural cooperation to communities in conflict
    • Graphic novel research: changing attitudes to reading and publishing
    • Hepatitis C: eliminating the virus among vulnerable communities of drug users and homeless people
    • Heritage technology: helping to augment museum collections and enliven cultural engagement
    • Humanitarian business: our innovation strategy is helping disaster-affected third world relief funds
    • Inclusive arts practice: reaching new understandings of what is truly inclusive
    • LGBTI health care: challenging and improving the inequality in care
    • Liver disease research: medical device innovation and commercialisation to combat liver disease
    • ONSIDE teacher mentoring: re-envisioning mentoring to promote professional development and wellbeing
    • Our research impact
    • Photography research: visualising history from the margins
    • Physiotherapy private practice: raising standards across the UK
    • Politics and arts: how media and visual communication can bring about social and political change
    • Practice-led research: developing the impact of research conducted through art and design practice
    • PrefHER: putting patient choice and preferences at the forefront of breast cancer management
    • Research impact
    • Resilience for social justice: research is bringing an inclusive revolution in mental health
    • Screen archives: fostering audiences for our shared film heritage through archive development and research
    • Sexual health research: understanding HIV and improving health among men who have sex with men
    • Sports science: protecting the health of Paralympic, Olympic and World Cup competitors
    • Stonehenge, where were the stones from? Geochemical fingerprinting research reveals origins of the sarsen stones
    • Street triage and mental health: giving a voice to those in crisis
    • Superfused Brighton: research into how creative and media innovation drives the digital economy
    • Sustainable tourism: collaborative research methodologies to transform the tourism sector
    • The Design Archives: international collections bring partners on board and develop innovative engagement
    • The Shakespeare Hut: forgotten and marginalised histories of theatre heritage
    • Can stress cause cancer? Research examines the relationship between stress and cancer
    • Urban agriculture research: increasing food production for city sustainability
    • Water supply research: providing better, cleaner, cheaper water
  • Research impact

Research impact

Our research is applied to support the quality of learners’ experiences, the professional development of educators throughout their careers, and decisions about education policy - locally, nationally and internationally.

Our examples of impact outlined below show how we share our research by being actively involved in partnerships that include school, FE and HE sectors, advocacy and policy networks, professional communities and networks, and local community organisations.

Being part of the University of Brighton School of Education allows us to build bridges between research and teaching. The School provides professional development in the full spectrum of education, from early years to youth and community work, to adult education. This makes it an ideally connected environment in which to base Education Research focused on learning throughout our lives.

Now that all teacher training colleges in Zimbabwe have been trained, all new teachers will have participatory action research included in their pre-service training. It will be very exciting to see the long-term effect of this on children’s learning outcomes.

Dr Tove Nagel, CEO of Save the Children, Norway (SCN)

Improving learning in 300 schools in Africa

Researchers led by Professor David Stephens collaborated with governments and schools in Africa to develop culturally sensitive participatory action research to evaluate education strategies. Findings led to the implementation of new policies to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and evidence revealed a boost to educational performance.

This research formed the basis of an international conference by Save the Children in Cambodia in 2009 and also impacted Save the Children's international policy development. Professor Stephens is following up this research in Bangladesh where he is collaborating with European Union-supported non-governmental organisations to deliver more effective teaching and learning to children of the Dhaka slums and Sylhet tea estates.

MRM-SS-childrens-rights

Evidence has shown that participatory action research has improved learning in 300 schools in Africa, involving 120,000 learners.

Promoting children's sexual and reproductive rights

With funding from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) commissioned Panos, a leading institute concerned with global development issues, to assess the impact of the IPPF’s A+ programme in promoting adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights. Dr Vicky Johnson from the University of Brighton was chosen to lead the research.

Research involved working with young people in the field, producing case studies giving insight into cultural and political contexts in Benin, Kenya, Nepal and Nicaragua, and exploring ways to overcome deep-rooted attitudes and beliefs.

The participatory design of this wide-reaching assessment produced a rich analysis of what worked and what did not, along with innovative examples of youth-led and youth-centred initiatives around the world that can be shared with others. It also gave clear evidence of how putting young people firmly at the centre of youth programmes can improve communication, participation, empowerment, rights, health and education.

MRM-SS-voice-for-young

 


Johnson’s theoretical socio-ecological model for youth programming has impacted upon IPPF senior policy development feeding into IPPF’s 2015 revised strategic plan.

Doortje Braeken, Senior Adviser on Adolescents, IPPF

Teaching children about their rights

UNICEF UK funded an evaluation of the impact of its Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) on the wellbeing and achievement of children and young people in participating schools. Dr Carol Robinson of the University of Brighton collaborated with Professor Judy Sebba of the University of Sussex and concluded that the RRSA has had a profound positive effect on the majority of schools involved.

Research showed that teaching children about their rights can improve behaviour, teacher-pupil relationships, and inclusivity. In addition, it can raise attainment and make for more mature, responsible students with a greater understanding of the wider world.

UNICEF UK has acted on many of the recommendations of the evaluation, including: clarifying expectations in terms of learning about rights; further development of the RRSA Virtual Learning Environment, and providing examples of assessment criteria and self-evaluation forms to help schools understand the expectations of RRSA.


Rights, respect and responsibility are the 3 Rs of learning to be a good citizen.

Sir John Dunford, independent review of the Office of the Children's Commissioner

Research showed that teaching children about their rights can improve behaviour, teacher-pupil relationships, and inclusivity. In addition, it can raise attainment and make for more mature, responsible students with a greater understanding of the wider world.

Challenging understandings of teacher knowledge

Our research to better understand the complexities around teacher knowledge has stimulated both debate and development among educators and policymakers. We believe this is important so that every teacher has the depth of professional knowledge to give students the best possible learning experience, and so that educators and policymakers understand how to support teachers’ learning in the wider context of education in our times.

Some of our partners in this research have included the UK Learning and Skills Research Network (LSRN) and the Association of Information Technology in Teacher Education (ITTE); in Australia the Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) and the National Council for Vocational Education Research (NCVER); and the Cyprus Educational Research Association (CERA).

Our research has challenged practices and beliefs about professional development and pedagogy from early years settings to doctoral supervision in higher education. It has stimulated debates about alternative understandings of teacher knowledge and creativity with digital tools.

The body of research has informed discourse both nationally and internationally in professional communities, which seek to inform policy and practice and to develop educators’ professional knowledge.

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