Impact case study database

Over the period 2014-19, a team of 21 ‘Living Legacies’ EC researchers led by Lilley and Ell created a set of geographical and geospatial tools, methods and approaches to address community groups and projects needs and interests in commemorating the Centenary of WW1 in new and meaningful ways. Funded through the UKRI AHRC (£1.7m), Living Legacies centre researchers collaborated nationally and internationally across research, community, heritage and policy sectors, resulting in highly successful outcomes and impacts for the funder, the results and impacts of which were summarised by the AHRC’s 2020 policy report, “Relationship Brokering: Reflections on Community Engagement from AHRC’s World War One Engagement Centres”, and a series of linked stakeholder and policy events in 2019 around the UK [LL1].

Schematic diagram of ‘ Living Legacies 1914-18 ’ Engagement Centre collaborators, partners, networks and projects, leveraging c.£900k for community coproduction (2014-19) [ LL1]

• Public engagement and community upskilling through digital and spatial humanities:

Through 120 community projects and 470 supported events, and focusing on digitally exploring, visualising and recording the legacies of WW1 in localities and landscapes, Living Legacies community engagement (archived at livinglegacies1914-18.ac.uk) resulted in significant impacts for key UK agencies, bodies and organisations leading WW1 Centenary programmes:

1. Living Legacies was established as part of a AHRC-NLHF strategic partnership, created in 2014. Working collaboratively with community groups UK-wide, our digital and place-based projects and programmes impacted on the successful delivery and reach of the £94 million Heritage Lottery Fund (now National Lottery Heritage Fund) community centenary objectives creating 1,900 WW1 projects across the UK, within which NLHF commended how:

“Living Legacies has been central to helping the National Lottery Heritage Fund achieve the aims of its strategic partnership with AHRC to support First World War Centenary projects to increase public understanding of the war…” [LL2]

1. A series of UK-wide community-based research and upskilling workshops on landscapes, web-GIS and field-survey were developed and delivered by Living Legacies as part of the Council for British Archaeology’s (CBA) major “Home Front Legacy” (HFL) Centenary crowdsourcing project, recording 5,660 WW1 heritage sites right across the UK in partnership with Historic England , with the result that:

“The range of things we [CBA] could offer at the workshops increased because of collaborating with Living Legacies – we were able to give a much broader range of skills development… to develop projects… to provide advice on fieldwork… at sites, identifying sites and recording them – all of those skills can be taken on to be used in any area of heritage”. [LL3]

1. In 2018 for the major RAF100 commemorative programme and working closely with the Royal Air Force in Northern Ireland, Living Legacies led and developed a digital, GIS-based toolkit (called “ Action Stations!”) for engaging Air Cadet Squadrons and young people in interpreting and recording historic airfields and aeronautical sites through using maps, aerial photographs and local fieldwork and site-recording. This collaboration had a significant impact on the efficacy of the RAF100 programme, as attested by the RAF:

‘The work undertaken by Living Legacies has helped increase the RAF’s profile in NI and brought our history to life for a wide audience…Living Legacies’ efforts in helping to achieve these aims has been invaluable’. [LL4]*

• Exploring contested and conflict heritage through digital and spatial humanities:

The Centenary of WW1 and especially commemorating critical historical events of 1916 in Ireland had potential to heighten divisions between Nationalist and Loyalist communities, a key policy concern identified by UK and RoI governments in 2014. Living Legacies researchers addressed this directly through creating an outreach programme built around digital and spatial technologies to work with NI local communities to explore WW1 through ‘sharing heritage’, with significant impacts highlighted by the Royal Geographical Society [LL5].

‘The Geography of Service and Death ’—A community coproduced GIS and web-map, created by collaboration between NLHF-funded East Belfast & Great War project and Shankill Area Social History group through crowdsourcing and partnership with Living Legacies researchers [ LL1/LL8] .

Cross-community research impacts in NI focusing on sharing WW1 heritage involved a close collaboration with National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) creating the “Remembering 1916” exhibition in 2016 [LL6], and the NI “Decade of Centenaries” programme [LL7], as well as leveraging and supporting a series of cross-community NLHF-funded WW1 Centenary inclusive heritage projects in NI, including Shankill Area Social History group (£10k), “Battlebags and Blimps” project with Carrickfergus Museum (£10k), East Belfast & the Great War (£10k), and a Peace-IV funded project with Down County Museum (£60k). [LL8]

These collaborations forged deep partnerships between community groups from different backgrounds and heritage stakeholders and research bodies, with workshops, field-surveys, map and landscape analyses, led by Lilley and the Living Legacies EC team, resulting in coproduced outputs, including digital-platforms, events and exhibitions (as set out in LL1 and summarised by project leads in reflective case-studies in LL8]. Through exploring legacies of WW1, the impacts of this six-year programme have achieved wide recognition by NI and UK policy-makers as meaningful and significant for enhancing cross-community relations:

1. Living Legacies’ impact on enhancing community relations through exploring and sharing contested heritage is commended by the Community Relations Council (CRC). Funded by the Northern Ireland Executive, CRC was established in 1990 to lead and support change towards reconciliation, tolerance and mutual trust in Northern Ireland, and to implement the NI Executive's ‘Good Relations Strategy’ – Together: Building a United Community. The CRC notes:

'It is in no small part down to Living Legacies that community groups and the public are coming to an understanding of the complexity of this period and that our sense of identity is becoming more permeable. In our experience communities and individuals are interested in the broader narratives, however, without assistance and expertise being made available it is difficult to make this a reality.’ [LL9]

1. UK government recognition and endorsement of the significance of cross-community impacts of Living Legacies’ in Northern Ireland is evidenced by Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) in Westminster . In July 2019 a report from DCMS Select Committee outlining ‘Lessons from the First World War Centenary’ specifically identified “the academic engagement centre at Queen’s University Belfast” in achieving this, and in commenting on the wider significance of this outreach work the UK Prime Minister's special representative for the World War One centenary, Dr Andrew Murrison MP, stated:

“It has been that Irish dimension that has been the most heartening and, for me, probably one of the most productive things that we have achieved”. [LL10]

Highlights:

• Following our pioneering work [e.g. R5,R6], search specialists in the National Crime Agency [ E1] and Home Office [ E2] became aware of the QUB research and criminal casework when searching on water. These two agencies have consistently asked for our support in applying our search methodology in problematic locations for serious crime investigations. Nine other organisations have requested similar assistance ( Section a).

• Through the IUGS Initiative on Forensic Geology ( IFG) and European Network of Forensic Sciences, we have provided training internationally to over 200 police officers/forensic investigators throughout Europe, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Australia (Section b).

• Outreach and public engagement have helped to raise the profile of our multi-proxy water-based search methodologies and geoforensic science more broadly (Section c).

a. Casework

As a result of our research expertise described above, we received multiple requests from law enforcement bodies (police, environment agency, humanitarian, military ([ E1, E2, E3]) and search and rescue personnel, to assist in searches of water that * applied our three-step methodology. Freshwater locations may possess submerged hazards, limited access, vegetation infestation, and often have few landmarks, making them difficult search environments. This has resulted in innovation-driven aquatic geoforensic research developed in conjunction with law enforcement and search professionals, each of whom observed the work and/or report here on the impact. In sequence, the following have asked for assistance described in this Impact Case Study:

** 1.** Fire & Rescue Service, N. Ireland* - search for sunken jet-ski (Co. Down), 2004 ( R5)

** 2. Northern Ireland Environment Agency* - illegal waste in a flooded quarry, 2006 ( R1)

** 3**.** An Garda Síochána search - drowned suicide victim, Fermanagh/Cavan, 2010 ( R3)

** 4.** Joint *NW England Police Dive Unit * / Home Office - canal survey, Liverpool, 2015 [E2]

** 5.** W. Midlands Police/Home Office* homicide search (flooded quarry), Dudley, 2015 [E1,E2]

** 6.** Police Scotland* search for missing person (flooded bog; Fig.1D), Fraserburgh, 2015

** 7.** Police Scotland* search for missing child, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire (Fig.1C), 2016 [E2]

** 8**. Leicestershire Police* search for a weapon (attempted homicide; Fig.1A), 2017 [E2]

** 9. Police Scotland* flooded quarry search (2 x homicide) Inverness, 2018/19 [E3]

** 10.** National Crime Agency*, Cyprus - survey advice, two flooded quarries, 2019 [E1]

** 11**.** Netherlands Forensic Institute - advice to search for sunken vehicle, 2019 [E4]

** 12**.** Training for the International Commission on Missing Persons ( ICMP) and

EQUITAS (humanitarian organisation), Bogota, Colombia, 2020 [E5]

The Major Crime Investigation Support Inspector of the National Crime Agency (responsible for advising on strategic, tactical and operational matters relating to major crime, complex and high-profile Police search operations throughout the UK) said of our work in 2019:

“*Dr Alastair Ruffell, who assists myself, other Police colleagues and staff from the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (Home Office) during such operations where his advanced knowledge and technical abilities are essential… he has developed (and continues to research) a standard operating procedure for forensic searches that deploys a GIS-based desktop study, modified boats/equipment and a geospatial multiproxy approach using the GPR together with Sonar and lightweight probes. I am unaware of anyone else in the UK or Europe and indeed much of the world doing this kind of work: some United States forces have used the method (e.g. the search and recovery of Gregory Reedy, Oregon)*. Some operations I have worked with Alastair on include:

• Search for a missing person, likely a homicide victim in a flooded quarry near Dudley, West Midlands

• Canal search for the body of Moira Anderson, believed killed in 1957 (Lanarkshire)

• Search for a weapon used in an attempted homicide, Derby (Trent & Mersey Canal)

• *Search for two victims of suspected homicide near Inverness." * [E1]

Writing about Ruffell’s work with the Home Office Defence, Science & Technology Laboratory, a member of the Frontline Support Search Team said in 2019:

“*His survey allowed divers to recover two items below silt level… which allowed the investigation to move forward. I have spent many hours with Alastair and have found his help and insight invaluable as we have been able to exchange ideas to aid police investigations... Our combined expertise allows police forces to make informed decisions with the surveys using these unique capabilities”*. [E2]

A Police Scotland Detective in the Specialist Crime Division stated,

“Without your involvement and expertise I doubt whether we could have come up with the successful search strategy we did.” [E3]

b. Professional Training and CPD Significance

• Law Enforcement Agency Training:** The cases above resulted in invited training events in water-borne GPR deployment run by McKinley and Ruffell under the framework of IUGS-IFG, including: (i) Messina, Sicily, 2014 (for Italian Police and university students); (ii) Canberra, Australia, 2014 (for Federal Police); (iii) Brasilia, Brazil, 2013 (for Brazilian Federal Police); (iv) Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2015 (for Colombian and Argentine law enforcement); (v) a training session in the European Meeting of Forensic Archaeologists (EMFA) 2016, Dublin (with Garda Síochána and >5 other agencies); (vi) an EMFA training weekend in Preston, University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) (attended by 45 participants, including the Netherlands Forensic Institute, Swedish and UK police) (2019). **These events all included demonstration geophysical tests (for forensic search) and forensic GIS workshops, with discussions around specific applications and needs. ** For example, in the EMFA event (vi above) the focus was on canal search techniques. In the Australian and Brazilian events, McKinley organised more advanced training in the use of spatial data in criminalistics for search, sampling and scene management for crime scene management.

The ICMP Scientific Advisor in Colombia stated in 2020:

“Search and recovery in aquatic contexts is a topic of great importance in Colombia, and is considered a very complex topic. We were honoured to have Dr. Ruffell share his knowledge with us and discuss the process of search and recovery with us…we all learned a great deal about novel and advanced techniques and approaches, some of which the participants will surely put into practice…” [E5]

• In summary, training has been provided for law enforcement, search and rescue, fraud investigations, humanitarian agencies, government forensic scientists, and NGOs who use and develop the methods shown here.

• Other events: In addition to the above, we promoted our aquatic geoforensics work through the following conferences: (i) **European Meeting of Forensic Archaeologists annual conference which we hosted in Belfast, 2018 (with 59 participants, including major crime forensic advisors (e.g. Head of ICLVR; Head of PSNI Body Recovery Unit) and a crime scene fieldtrip; (ii) Japanese Geological Society Annual Conference, 2015, Nagano (at the invitation of Detective Sugita, Japanese Police); and (iii) Institute of Forensic Archaeologists conference (Bradford, 2016), amongst other events.

c. Public engagement and outreach

• Media articles: Our aquatic search casework has stimulated and enhanced public understanding of forensic science, as indicated by our non-specialist outputs and media publications (see E6). These include articles in The Conversation and Police Professional. In some instances where aquatic search was undertaken (e.g. the Coatbridge Canal case for Police Scotland 2016), significant profiling in the media led directly to outreach publications and newspaper articles [ E6A, E6B]. Wider high profile crime-related news (e.g. the death of Ian Brady) provided further opportunities to promote our work through outreach [e.g., E6D , E6E]. Collectively, these outreach activities widened public knowledge and understanding of the role our work plays in criminal search. Because much of our casework is sensitive in nature, it is not always appropriate to publicise details of our activities, and we often request to remain anonymous due to the security situation in Northern Ireland.

• Community and School Events:** To further extend the reach of our work, we delivered >20 invited talks to community groups and school/university students in NI and GB including: (i) annual talks to the Blind and Partly Sighted Group, N. Ireland; (ii) University of the Third Age (Taunton, 2018); (iii) SW England Geological Society Regional Group (2017); (iv) Leicester University Geological Society (2016); and (v) Donegal County Council (2019). The latter event was attended by Garda officers, widening our network in RoI. We also ran popular sessions at two large Science Festivals ( Belfast 2016; Monaghan 2017), both including interactive 'problem-based' learning where participants were tasked with solving a crime.

• Education:** Geoforensic water-search approaches are integrated within a QUB UG module (GGY3049 Geoforensics; ~70 students) and UG dissertations (2-5 per year). Former student McCutcheon used this training to secure employment as a Detective Inspector in PSNI. Ruffell delivers an annual class on forensic science to Ulster University Law students, increasing forensic knowledge in the next generation of lawyers. Ruffell and McKinley delivered an invited forensic geoscience workshop for Hong Kong University in 2015, raising awareness of the impacts arising from the research amongst students and staff.