Impact
Staff in the Department of History conduct research that is of interest and valueto the communityoutside universities. We actively engage with this public in many ways, and through these activities our work has a significant impact in wider society. We communicate the results of our research to audiences in a range of public engagement and dissemination activities, sharing our expertise with schools, history societies and the local community. Individually and collectively, members of the department also collaborate with external partners in knowledge exchange activities, bringing tangible benefits to museums, cinemas and local businesses. Civic engagement is a central part of our impact activity, and many staff work with partners in and around Sheffield. At the same time, staff in the department conduct impact activities in national and international settings.
In engaging with the community outside universities, we emphasize five departmental pathways. Through `Public lectures & events´ we communicate our most recent and up-to-date research findings to local, national and international audiences. Colleagues have held talks at the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield on films of historical interest, for example, and collaborated with Sheffield-based `Music in the Round´. Staff have also given public lectures both within Britain and around the world, including at the Leeds and Manchester Jewish Historical Societies, the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading, the National Army Museum in London, the Université Catholique de Lille, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in New York.
We contribute to local schools´ teaching by holding events for local pupils and their teachers via our `Schools History Network´, introducing children to advances in historical knowledge, and enabling teachers to brush up on their scholarship concerning historical events. Staff have given talks to students at local schools, but we also hold events within the department to which local pupils and teachers are invited.
Through a well-established and growing portfolio of `History Partners´, we collaborate with local organizations and businesses, sometimes devising projects together and at other times acting as advisors on historical content. The `Displaying Drink 1650-1850´ collaboration with Museums Sheffield led to an exhibition in the Metalwork Gallery at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, installed in 2008. For more details, click here. Other partners include Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, Brodsworth House (English Heritage) and Sheffield Archives. Many of our partners provide work placements for our MA students.
The research undertaken in the department has a very wide reach, with many staff engaged in `National and International Activities´. Our historians regularly appear in the national media. Recent activities include appearances on BBC Radio 4, UK History, Sky 1, articles for the The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, History Today, BBC History Magazine. History staff were closely involved in the BBC1 series `Garrow's Law: Tales from the Old Bailey´, and the BBC4 series `Glamour´s Golden Age´. With a large number of staff working on European or International subjects, our research has a global reach. Most recently, colleagues have written for Der Tagesspiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Finally, `Webpages´ are an important pathway for our research impact, communicating our research findings and engaging with the wider public on its sources and contemporary relevance. The Old Bailey Online project has made available to the public the proceedings of the Old Bailey criminal court between 1674 and 1913. The website has received some 15 million hits since it was launched in 2003, and has become an invaluable resource for family and local historians. To visit the project click here. The Virtual Re-presentation project used computing techniques to recreate historical locations which no longer exist, including Benjamin Huntsman's Attercliffe Works (the place where crucible steelmaking was discovered in Sheffield). To see this example click here.
Further information can be found under the page `Our Public Activity´, accessible from the Departmental home page.