Academic research into marketing: many publications, but little impact?

This article reviews some issues associated with the way in which academic research into marketing is evaluated by UK education authorities using their Research Excellence Framework (REF), in particular the impact component of the assessment. It discusses the extent to which research by marketing academics published in leading academic journals is relevant to the concerns of marketing management and how this relevance or lack of it may be reflected in the relative paucity of impact submissions in marketing. It considers the model of impact assessment used in the REF and how this differs from how marketing academics work in practice, giving three examples of significant impact that would not be acceptable under current rules. It concludes by suggesting that alternative models for impact should be investigated and suggests that using more practical models might result in better engagement of marketing academics with business, leading to greater relevance in teaching and employability of marketing graduates

Barriers and enablers to employment: black disabled peoples living with sickle cell disorder 2017-2018

A qualitative research project, based on 47 in-depth interviews, examining the reported experiences of adults (aged 18-66) living with sickle cell disease/disorder (SCD) about their work and employment in England. The project was in partnership with two sickle cell non-governmental organizations (Sickle Cell Society and OSCAR Sandwell). The project examined the barriers and enablers to employment and work for people living with the severe inherited chronic illness sickle cell disorder (SCD)

Making it real: virtual tools in 3D creative practice

FutureFactories is a design research project exploring the creative possibilities afforded by digital design and manufacturing technologies. A specific aim of the project is mass individualisation; the industrial scale production of one-off artefacts. Tangible products would ‘printed’ direct from virtual meta-designs using additive manufacturing (Atkinson 2003). Distinct from mass customisation, where the product is configured to a specific consumer need or desire, individualisation involves introducing elements of random variance similar to the idiosyncrasy seen in natural forms. In the initial research a computational design approach was adopted in which computer scripts were used to ‘drive’ parametric CAD models (Unver 2003). A barrier to the adoption of such systems however, is the level of programming involved. Methodologies were developed to simplify the task such a Constructive Solid Geometry, CSG, building block approach (Dean 2009) whereby complex geometries are ‘assembled’ from pre-defined primitives. In spite of this development programming remained a significant burden. A commercial desire to simplify further had to be balanced against an audience demand for ever more dramatic changes in geometry. A potential solution came from looking outside of object centred product design to the virtual realm and to digital visualisation and simulation tools developed for diverse industries such as cinema and applied mechanics. This paper explores, through a series of case studies, the adoption and adaption of virtual modelling tools in 3D creative practice. Functional product design outputs are examined along with the practicality of the methodologies used to create them. As the transition between the digital and the real becomes increasingly simple, the virtual realm is set to become an ever more fruitful creative playground for 3D design and craft practitioners

Collaborative governance under austerity: An eight-case comparison study, qualitative data 2015-2018

Qualitative data (interview, focus group and observation) collected for the Leicester case study of the "Collaborative Governance Under Austerity and Eight-Case Comparison" project. The purpose was to compare the role of collaboration in governing austerity in eight cities: Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Melbourne, Montreal and Nantes. The primary objective was to understand whether, and if so how, collaboration among public officials, citizens, business leaders and other actors contributes to austerity governance. Austerity governance, defined as a sustained agenda for reducing public spending, poses new challenges for the organisation of relationships between government, business and citizens in many parts of the world. This project compares how these challenges are addressed in eight countries: Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Ireland, Spain, the UK and the USA. Governments have long sought effective ways of engaging citizen activists and business leaders in decision making, through many formal and informal mechanisms - what we term collaborative governance. The focus of our research is how collaboration contributes to the governance of austerity. Governments and public service leaders argue that collaboration with businesses, voluntary organisations and active citizens is essential for addressing the many challenges posed by austerity. The challenges include transforming public services to cope with cuts, changing citizen expectations and managing demand for services and enhancing the legitimacy of difficult policy decisions by involving people outside government in making them. But at the same time, collaboration can be exclusionary. For example, if there are high levels of protest, governmental and business elites may collaborate in ways that marginalise ordinary citizens to push through unpopular policies. Our challenge is to explore different ways in which collaboration works or fails in governing austerity and whether it is becoming more or less important in doing so. We propose to compare the role of collaboration in governing austerity in eight cities of the aforementioned countries: Athens, Baltimore, Barcelona, Dublin, Leicester, Melbourne, Montreal and Nantes. It is in towns and cities that government has the most immediate and closest day-to-day engagement with citizens and it is for this reason that we chose to locate our research at the urban scale. Our primary objective is to understand whether, and if so how, collaboration among public officials, citizens, business leaders and other actors contributes to austerity governance. For example is there more collaboration, less or are we seeing different kinds of collaboration emerging? Who, if anyone, refuses to collaborate and with what implications for governing austerity? Might collaboration be a way to subvert or resist aspects of austerity? The research is comparative, meaning that it is looking for patterns and to see what lessons and insights countries in different parts of the world might draw from one another. Finding ways to collaborate with citizens has always been important for central and local governments, although collaboration has been a higher political priority in the past 20 years than before. Our study will tell politicians and public officials much about how collaboration works as a way of governing austerity. However we are not trying to 'sell' collaboration, or suggest that those suffering from cuts and wanting to resist them should collaborate if they do not wish to. For citizen activists our research will highlight different strategies and options for speaking truth to power - by engaging with city government and local business elites, or refusing to do so and perhaps focusing on protest instead. We will discover when collaboration serves the ends of community groups and when it does not. Participants in our study, and others, will have the opportunity to discuss these issues at a series of local events, at which we will discuss our findings. The research will also engage with important academic debates about the changing nature of governance. In gathering and comparing a large body of data we will learn about the changing role of government under austerity and whether governing is becoming more elite-focused, remote and hierarchical, or perhaps even more inclusive despite the challenging times in which we live.</p

Endometriosis: improving the well being of couples

This is a qualitative study in three phases. Phase One is a contextual phase consisting of interviews with key informants including healthcare providers, patients, and support group representatives. Phase Two includes in-depth interviews with heterosexual women and their male partners. Phase Three involves a Stakeholder Workshop which will collaboratively explore the findings and discuss how insights from this work contribute to improved support for couples and also inform theories of chronic illness more generally.Endometriosis is a common, disabling gynaecological condition affecting approximately 2 million women in the UK. Common symptoms are chronic pelvic pain, fatigue, heavy periods, and pain experienced during sexual intercourse. It may also affect fertility. There is no consensus on what causes endometriosis and there is no definitive cure. Despite the chronic and potentially disabling nature of endometriosis, along with its impact across a wide range of life domains, there is relatively little work on what it means to live with this condition.The overall aim of this study is to explore the impact of endometriosis on couples in particular, and to enhance the well being of people living with endometriosis by providing an evidence base for improving couple support. This is a qualitative study in three phases. Phase One is a contextual phase consisting of interviews with key informants including healthcare providers, patients, and support group representatives. Phase Two includes in-depth interviews with heterosexual women and their male partners. Phase Three involves a Stakeholder Workshop which will collaboratively explore the findings and discuss how insights from this work contribute to improved support for couples and also inform theories of chronic illness more generally.</p

Workforce remodelling, teacher trade unionism and school-based industrial relations

The research aims to examine reforms that collectively comprise the government's remodelling agenda. In particular, it centres on the effects of the expansion of teaching assistants and new Teaching and Learning Responsibility payments on the construction of teachers' jobs. The former gives rise to concerns that teaching in effect will no longer be an all-graduate profession, with teachers increasing given the role of planning and supervising the delivery of lessons by assistants. The second initiative strengthens the first by redefining teachers' work through the exclusion of traditional roles, such as pastoral ones. While both initiatives are centrally driven, and have been agreed by some education unions, they place responsibility for implementation at local level. The research aims to trace the variation of outcomes and the degree to which the changes challenge traditional industrial relations and the role and nature of workplace trade unionism. The research will examine both key government policies and the response of trade unions at national level, and how these policies are mediated at local level through case studies of a number of schools in three local authorities. Data will be gathered by interviews with key personnel at national and local levels

Climate Action Interactions in Selected UK and Japanese Cities, 2020

Our networking project on the alignment of Sustainable Development Goals with local climate actions collected relevant data as follows: 1) We engaged with officials in selected cities in the UK and Japan. Data collected through interviews and meetings with such officials provided useful information. 2) An online survey was conducted to understand local authority engagement in the SDG and climate actions in the UK. The data collected and created through the above activities is made available through this collection for use in research purposes.We are requesting the funding to develop social science research collaboration between De Montfort University (UK) and the Institute for Global Energy Strategies (Japan). We are proposing a series of networking and knowledge exchange activities on the timely theme of making climate planning more sustainable in cities in United Kingdom and Japan. The world is urbanising rapidly and more than 50% of the global population now lives in cities around the world. As the economic output is concentrated in cities, their contribution to climate change is significant and growing rapidly. While many cities have climate action plans and city administrations are seemingly well-positioned to align their climate change plans with other sustainable development concerns, little is known about the sustainability of city climate plans. Relatively little is known about the steps cities are taking to make climate plan sustainable. In fact, whether and to what extent cities are making links between their climate and sustainability objectives remains an open question.This proposal aims to fill this knowledge gap through this networking and knowledge exchange activity. This would help us in identifying and developing a larger action-oriented, multidisciplinary research programme on the integration between climate planning and the SDGs in cities. We are proposing the work in a number of distinct phases. In the networking phase, we will develop a list of cities that have already produced climate change plan. In the scoping phase, we aim to develop screening criteria to help identify the links and gaps between that climate plan and the SDGs. The screening criteria will be used to create a shortlist of cities in both countries to determine the status of integration of Sustainable Development Goals in climate action plans, identify the reasons for weak alignment and find ways of improving the linkage. This scoping exercise would consist of interviews and surveys with a manageable number of cities in both Japan and the United Kingdom. In the final phase, the research teams in both countries would develop a set of knowledge products and learning materials that would summarise the preliminary results of the networking and then scoping phase. The main outputs would consist of an introductory paper that outlines the objectives, key questions, scope, methods, and relevant literature on the themes covered in the project. This would then be complemented by two additional papers-one each for Japan and the United Kingdom-that lays out the main results for both of those countries. An additional paper would focus on some of the comparative insights from looking across the results of cities in the two countries. We plan to develop collaboration through two-way researcher exchanges, joint workshops, scoping studies in UK and Japanese cities, developing an online platform to share ideas and solicit inputs into a full research proposal around the integration of climate and SDG planning in the UK and Japan. Both the teams are well placed to undertake the work given their respective strengths in energy systems (for DMU) and climate policy (IGES) and their existing networks with the local city administrations as well as other stakeholders. The work is planned for 18 months and both the teams are committing significant financial resources in addition to the requested fund.</p

A guide to school policy for young people with sickle cell and thalassaemia

A booklet produced by Professor Simon Dyson at De Montfort University providing a practical guide for schools and other educational institutions for supporting young people with sickle cell and thalassaemia. A "MUST HAVE" resource for everyone involved in education. Resource produced as part of the SCOOTER Project (http://www.sicklecellanaemia.org)

Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Resources

A series of lectures by Professor Simon Dyson at De Montfort University discussing the social consequences of ante-natal screening for sickle cell and thalassaemia, targeted on the basis of ethnic and family origins. These OER are available in a number of formats on the SCOOTER Project website (http://www.sicklecellanaemia.org)