Understanding types of impact and change

Professor David Stevenson's research on the history of the First World War informed initiatives which commemorated the dead, stimulated interest in the wider history of the war and enhanced understandings of its lesser-known stories and events. 

LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment has been influential across a wide range of global efforts to act against climate change. The Institute’s thinking on sustainable growth and long-term infrastructure investments has been taken up by financial institutions, particularly multilevel development banks, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and New Development Bank (NDB). Elsewhere, institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the European Commission also made extensive use of the Institute’s research on sustainable growth. Furthermore, researchers from the Institute have advised governments in more than 10 countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean on climate policy formulation, as well on a climate law for the EU.

Research led by Dr Sandra Sequiera testing the effectiveness of a scheduling system for managing patients’ antenatal care visits in southern Mozambique reduced average patient waiting times by 100 minutes and contributed to a 16% increase in the number of women receiving the WHO-recommended minimum four antenatal care visits. Patients attested to the benefits of the scheduling system in reducing logistical barriers to attending antenatal care services and improving overall household wellbeing. The intervention has since been rolled out across a further 46 antenatal care units and extended to 40 HIV units in public clinics across four provinces in southern Mozambique, covering more than 217,000 patients, alongside a wider programme of capacity-building at the clinic level.

Professor Hugh Collins's research concerning gaps in the remedies available to consumers who are victims of unfair commercial practices or scams, led Parliament to legistlate to close these remedial gaps, enhacing consumer rights and their ability to seek redress from unconscionable sales practices, which at the time were costing the UK over £3 billion each year.

Poor management and maintenance of social housing has well-evidenced negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of social housing tenants. LSE Housing and Communities’ research illustrating the effectiveness of tenant-focused neighbourhood management has influenced providers to engage and empower local tenants and residents to deliver  better management of their estates. This includes facilitating tenant input into enforcement on fire safety regulations, crime, and anti-social behaviour. The intervention was enabled through the efforts of the Housing Plus Academy – an academic/service provider/professional association partnership spearheaded by LSE Housing and Communities since 2015 and has reached over 1,500 tenants, housing providers, and local and central government officials through residential training and workshops.

Research led by Simon Dietz at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment is at the heart of a new global initiative to measure and monitor the progress of big corporations on the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) is a unique partnership between a consortium of 87 big investors with USD23 trillion combined assets under management/advice, a commercial data/index provider (FTSE Russell), an international NGO (Principles for Responsible Investment), and a university (LSE). Organisations that have leveraged TPI data include The Universities Superannuation Scheme (one of the largest occupational pension schemes in the UK, managing around £68bn in AUM), Robeco (with a portfolio of €146 billion AUM) and abrdn (a global asset manager with £457 billion AUM).

LSE research has contributed to institutional capacity building and to the renewal of the study of religion in the former Soviet Union. More specifically, the LSE anthropologist Mathijs Pelkmans has contributed to the training of a new generation of local scholars in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia; helping to introduce these scholars to contemporary research and to innovative methodologies, and mentoring them in critical social science.

Professor Mary Kaldor convened a study group that proposed a new "human security" doctrine for the EU which influenced security and defence policy at the EU and country member levels, and has been applied in countries undergoing conflict (Chad, Somalia, Iraq and Libya) contributing to peacekeeping efforts, reducing violence dramatically and supporting a return to civil society.

Professor John Sidel's research has made a significant contribution to the Coalitions for Change (CfC) programme in the Philippines, by shaping its understanding of the political context for policy reform advocacy, advising on tactics and strategy, making decisive interventions on specific reform initiatives, and drawing lessons from successes and failures. CfC has successfully promoted reforms in disaster risk reduction, education, electoral processes, healthcare, land governance, public transportation and infrastructure, and tax policy.

Millions of cases of multi-drug resistance bacterial infection occur each year. Yet the pharmaceutical industry has all but ceased investing in antibiotic development due to a combination of low profits and lack of appropriate incentives. LSE Health analysed the nature of the incentives necessary to get antibiotic R&D going again to help overcome some of the traditional market failures associated with the development of new antibiotics thus sparking the first major international collaboration to tackle antibiotic resistance and contributing to important policy changes in Europe and the USA.

Poor safety culture is a causal factor in serious aviation accidents. LSE research by Dr Tom Reader has informed the development of a methodology for systematically measuring safety culture in the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) industry. The methodology has been used by EUROCONTROL (the European ATM network manager) to monitor and improve safety management across the European ATM industry, being applied to measure and develop safety culture in more than 30 European Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs). Combined, these ANSPs operate in most European countries, employ over 50,000 staff, and coordinate up to 30,000 flights daily. The methodology has subsequently been used to measure safety culture and generate institutional change at UK airports (e.g. Luton) and major airlines (e.g. EasyJet).

Key insights from LSE Cities' interdisciplinary research on the "compact and well-connected' city have been incorporated by central government in national planning policy and by the Mayor of London in the London Plan. This has led to urban land being developed more intensively, ensuring more sustainable and efficient use of space in English towns and cities. Research on green city policies has been adopted by the United Nations Environment Programme (2011) and is determining policy formulation in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Portland. Urban Age conferences and research have created an international network of urban policy-makers and scholars, and LSE Cities staff have had impact on the design of the Olympic Park in London and development plans for cities outside the UK.

Research compiled by LSE Philosophy’s Foundations of Animal Sentience project [ASENT] demonstrated that there is strong scientific evidence that Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans have the capacity to experience pain, distress or harm. In response, the UK government has extended the scope of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill to include all animals from these two groups – which include octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, and crabs, lobsters and crayfish.