Is your research achieving its impact potential?

UK participation in European funding programmes

EU Membership and UK Science

EU–Africa partnership in co-funding research

Data management plans for funded research

Elections, lobbying and voting: #LSEresearchimpact
British elections, EU votes and US lobbying connections have all been analysed by LSE research projects. What impact have they had? Read three new case studies to find out how LSE academics are changing the world of political participation.

 
Enhancing democracy in the British electoral system
Department of Government professors Patrick Dunleavy and Simon Hix were instrumental in electoral design and reform in the UK at the city, town, borough and national levels.
>>Read the impact case study


Influencing reform in EU voting structure
CPNSS’ Voting Power & Procedures (VPP) initiative influenced the design of an EU voting system that would ensure all citizens an equal voice.
>>Read the impact case study


Putting a price on the value of Washington political connections
Department of Management research by Jordi Blanes i Vidal on ‘insider’ relationships provided concrete evidence for curbing the influence of lobbyists in the US political system.
>>Read the impact case study


AXA Research Fund annual celebration
The AXA Research Fund, the international scientific philanthropy initiative of global insurer AXA, has announced that it will devote €15.6m in 2016 to 44 new research projects with leading academic institutions in 16 countries. The new projects were presented at an annual celebration in Paris in April 2016, bringing together AXA executives and experts, members of the AXA Research Fund scientific community and academic partners. 

The new partnerships reflect an increased focus on social sciences, such as the role of positive emotions and social networks in health prevention and the analysis of social behaviours for the development of public health policies. 

LSE currently holds two awards: an AXA Post-Doctoral Fellowship awarded to Dr Emily Freeman, and an AXA Award held by Professor Jeffrey Chwieroth.
>>More  


RCUK to replace Je-S electronic grants submission service in 2017
Research Councils UK will be upgrading their electronic grants submission service in 2017. Applicants, peer reviewers, research managers and administrators will no longer use the Je-S system to apply for grants, submit reviews or manage grant activities. There will be an entirely new external portal. In future, the whole grant application form will be digitised which means in the majority of cases no more uploading of attachments. And there are other improvements such as in built formatting for font size and word count, improved dashboards to help manage grant activities as well as guidance relevant to a particular funding opportunity close at hand all on the one screen whilst applying.

The ambition is to run a small number of funding opportunities through the new system by March 2017 to test that everything is working as it should be. After March 2017 there will be parallel running of the new awards service and Je-S which will be gradually phased out throughout 2017. Full transition from Je-S to the new awards service is expected to be completed by May 2018 at the latest.

You can receive regular updates about this project by subscribing to the mailing list.


Research Development team ARMA award nomination
Congratulations to Research Division's Research Development team, nominated for Research Management Team of the Year at this year’s ARMA awards (award sponsored by Worktribe). Fingers crossed to win!

The UK elections on 5 May 2016 will see a significant jump in the proportion of female candidates, with the largest increases coming in the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

Researchers from the Democratic Dashboard team at LSE analysed data on the gender balance of candidates standing in elections for the London Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. They found that the proportion of female candidates is higher in each compared with the most recent set of elections.
>>More

The editors, Ruth Lupton, Tania Burchardt, John Hills, Kitty Stewart and Polly Vizard, conclude that although the financial crisis and subsequent recession hit the economy hard, Britain’s welfare state did initially protect many of the most vulnerable from its sharpest effects.  But that protection was not uniform. Young adults were hardest hit in the labour market, for example, while those of pension age had their incomes improved faster than inflation.
>>More

The research, which is directly relevant to other small creative-lead businesses such as technology start-ups and designers, but could also be widened to innovation in bigger companies, found that British chefs have a significantly harder task building a coherent staff essential for the consistently high quality implementation of their creative ideas.
>>More

The impact of Brexit on foreign investment in the UK

Cars and financial services – two important UK industries – would receive less investment from foreign firms that use the UK as a base to access EU markets, the report claims. Also, the UK’s ability to negotiate concessions from regulations on EU-related transactions would be seriously eroded. Overall, incomes could fall by about 3.4% just from lower foreign investment.
>>More

---

Top tips

Five top tips for effective video and audio content

1. Contact the Film and Audio team at the start of your project to discuss your ideas and how they can help. Have an objective in mind, for instance, you might want to reach a younger or a wider audience. 
2. Consider your core message and how it could be translated into a story that is engaging and entertaining for the viewer or listener. What information, feeling, or action are you trying to convey, communicate, or inspire? 
3. Before commissioning new content consider using existing media channels. You might reach a much larger or more targeted audience by contributing an interview to a popular podcast, or YouTube channel. 
4. Discuss the options for online publishing in advance. The Film and Audio team manage the School’s video and audio channels including You Tube, SoundCloud and iTunes. 
5. Think about how you will promote your content. A retweet or like from someone with a large Twitter or Facebook following can be really effective.

Tip provided by Dearbhla Clarke, Head of Corporate Marketing, Communications Division.

---

60 second interview

Emily Jackson, Professor of Law, first joined LSE in 1998. After graduating from Oxford University, she worked as a research officer at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in Oxford. Her first teaching position was at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and she has also taught at Birkbeck College and Queen Mary, University of London. Emily’s research interests are in the field of medical law. She is a member of the British Medical Association Medical Ethics Committee, and until 2012, she was Deputy Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Since 2014, she has been a Judicial Appointments Commissioner.

You have recently been awarded knowledge exchange funding under the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). Congratulations! This was used to set up a fictional beauty brand ‘pop-up’ shop called Timeless in London’s Old Street station to raise awareness about egg freezing and fertility. How did the idea come about and what was the reaction to the ‘pop up’ shop?
This project involved collaboration with colleagues whose expertise is in design. The ‘pop up’ shop, as a way to communicate information about egg freezing, was their idea, and it worked brilliantly. There was a constant stream of visitors to the shop, including a group of teenage boys from a local secondary school who had been told to visit it by their biology teacher. Men and women of all ages were really engaged and interested, and it provoked lots of fascinating conversations about fertility issues. 

What was the highlight of the Timeless project?
The highlight was undoubtedly the shop itself. The graph of women’s declining fertility (image below), using bottles carefully filled to demonstrate declining ovarian reserve from age 12 to 50 was especially striking.


Your research interests include medical law and ethics with particular emphasis upon reproductive issues, end of life decision-making and the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry. These can be classed as sensitive issues or even ‘taboo’. In short, could you tell us your views on the ethical landscape and what improvements can be made?
Nothing should be taboo, and certainly not reproduction or death. It is really important that people talk about matters of life and death. They affect us all, and are increasingly medicalised, meaning that more of us have to make difficult decisions about how, when and whether to reproduce, and how and where we die.
 
Do you have any advice for your fellow colleagues in applying for and/or managing a grant?
The process of applying for Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) funding at LSE was straightforward, so I would strongly advise people to take advantage of these opportunities. [Note: contact Marie Copperwaite for further information on HEIF funding.]
 
Based on your roles outside of LSE, as member of the British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Ethics Committee, Deputy Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and Judicial Appointments Commissioner (JAC), what benefits/advantages have these appointments had to your career, research and publications?
It has been incredibly rewarding to be involved in policy discussions at the BMA and the HFEA, in regulating fertility treatment and embryo research at the HFEA, and in judicial appointments at the JAC.

I had written a book about the regulation of reproduction before I became a member of the HFEA, and it was fascinating and eye-opening to be exposed to the realities and practicalities of regulation.
 
You are currently on sabbatical leave, how are you spending your time?
My first task was to start and finish the fourth edition of my textbook. It’s over 1000 pages long, so that is not a small job. I then went to Australia where I am working with Australian researchers on a large empirical project about cross-border reproductive travel. Since coming home, I have been working on a paper about law evasion and assisted conception, and another about egg freezing.