Outcomes for Research. Research Excellence Strategy 2025 outlines ambitions for UWS to develop distinctive research and innovation aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with a commitment to research informed curriculum. UWS continues to produce excellent research outputs that reach beyond academia through knowledge transfer partnerships, innovation, spin-off and enterprise activities. UWS’ REF2021 assessment demonstrated its research is world-leading in terms of quality and excellence. Research is a significant asset for Scotland propelling innovation, economic growth, the emergence and acceleration of new industries, creating jobs and will be fundamental to the realisation of many of the ambitions in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET). London Economics estimate that every £1 of public investment in Scottish university research generates £8 of additional output in the economy. Case study BREATH Research Excellence Grant Support included three match-funded studentships (£180,000) and funding for a post-doctoral researcher (£48,000) Researchers at UWS have been working on a preventative approach to chronic lung disease via a programme of research under the €7.7m Breath project, a cross-border partnership between UWS, Dundalk Institute of Technology and Queen’s University Belfast. BREATH (Border and Regions Airways Training Hub) has established a world-class cluster of scientists and clinicians to address the causes, treatment, and prevention of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). BREATH was funded via the European Union’s INTERREG VA Programme and underpinned by investment from the Research Excellence Grant in Scotland via a combination of studentships, consumables, and research staff funding. Throughout the duration of the project, BREATH successfully trained 28 young scientists to PhD level, or beyond, in both project‐specific scientific skills through industrial interactions. The initiative also had an extensive public outreach programme consisting of multiple school visits and media events, through which they have actively engaged over 5,000 pupils across the region. Research Excellence Grant funding was pivotal to ensuring the success of the project for the UWS team providing match funding in the form of three additional studentships (£180,000) and bridging funding to extend the contract of a pivotal postdoctoral research staff member (£48,000) to support the research in the lab and outreach to schools in the Ayrshire & ...
Outcomes for Research. The REF 2021 submission was completed in March 2021. It submitted published work from ten different members of staff, dealing with a wide range of subject areas ranging from sociolingustics and linguistics, to literature, to Gaelic historical and cultural studies and musicology, an Environment Statement drawing on a wide range of our research and knowledge exchange activity, and two case studies. One, ‘Addressing Gaelic linguistic fragility in the Gaelic-speaking communities of Scotland and Ireland’ explored the impact of our sociolinguistic work on public and political attitudes regarding the importance of supporting traditional speech communities, and on identifying and influencing the strategies and interventions necessary to support them. The other, ‘Moving beyond token words: establishing new approaches to Gaelic in Scotland’s National Museum’ drew on the collaborative work undertaken by SMO colleagues and the National Museums of Scotland on the 2019 exhibition ‘Wild and Majestic / Fiadhaich Glòrmhor’, exploring the Gaelic background and contribution to the development of Romanticism in Scotland in the eighteenth century and beyond, and on its impact in changing museum policy on the use of Gaelic language and perspectives in interpretation and exhibition design. The SMO seminar series continued to be held on a digital platform and to draw in a wide national and international audience (attendance ranging between 70 and 110 per seminar, including academic colleagues and community participants from Europe and North America as well as Scotland and the UK), delivering 14 sessions over the autumn and spring semesters; the final session offered our postgraduate community the opportunity to present their work in a very well-received ‘mini-conference’. SMO staff have completed a number of important publications over the lockdown period, among them Xxx Xxxxxxx and Xxxx Xxxxxx’x magnum opus ‘Window to the West’; musicological papers by both Xxxx Xxxxxx and Xxxx Xxxxxx in the new Musica Scotica volume; Xxxx Xxxxxx’x study of the 'Old Ways' in Gaelic Scotland in his contribution to the Hunterian Museum’s exhibition and volume on travel in eighteenth-century Scotland, ‘Old Ways New Roads’, and Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart’s study of the Invention of Highland Second Sight i n a new volume on ‘The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland’. Effective knowledge exchange and innovation (Heritage Act Outcome 4: (Deliver excellent research and knowledge transfer to support Gae...
Outcomes for Research
