Impact case study database

As the Director of GDWG, Anna Pincus, states: ‘without David’s [Herd] expertise as a researcher and writer Refugee Tales could not have achieved its influence and reach’ [a]. The impact achieved is as follows:

1. Influence on the framing of detention policy

The accounts of indefinite detention shared by Refugee Tales, and published in the project’s three volumes, have directly influenced the framing of detention policy and legislation. Following the publication of Volume II ( 2017), the project used the published stories as a lobbying tool to press for a change of law. Herd and other project members engaged in one-to-one meetings with MPs from all parties, using the project’s accounts of detention as evidence of the need for change. During this process, Refugee Tales secured the support of a sufficient number of MPs to establish a working cross-party majority (in the 2017-19 Parliament) in favour of a change to the law [b, c]. In September 2017, Herd was invited to contribute to Diane Abbott’s Party Conference Speech as Shadow Home Secretary.

In 2018, Refugee Tales invited Shami Chakrabarti (Shadow Attorney General) and Afzal Khan (Shadow Immigration Minister) to take part in a Labour Party Conference Fringe Event, which Herd hosted and addressed, with the aim of securing the Party’s adoption of a 28-day limit to asylum detention. Khan posted a policy announcement immediately after his appearance at the event: ‘Tonight I spoke at the @RefugeeTales fringe at #Lab18 on the need to end indefinite detention. @UKLabour will implement a 28-day limit on immigration detention. It’s #Time4aTimeLimit’ [b]. Writing in the Guardian, Chakrabarti has publicly cited Refugee Tales as a book to ‘inspire activism’ [e].

In October 2018, Refugee Tales further built the campaign for a limit by launching 28for28.org: a series of filmed readings of the published tales (by leading writers and actors), with an introduction scripted by Herd, and released one per day for 28 days across social media [d]. Subsequently, a submission including extracts from Refugee Tales I and II was considered as evidence by the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ Report on Immigration Detention (JCHR Report), helping inform the report’s case for a time limit on detention [c]. Following this political groundwork, Refugee Tales was actively involved in the process of preparing for, and drafting, an amendment to the 2019 Immigration Bill, sponsored by the Labour Front Bench and designed to end indefinite detention [c]. Though the bill was ultimately deferred (by prorogation and the 2019 election), the amendment has set the terms for subsequent legislative discussion of detention in the UK.

1. An international model of campaigning practice

Refugee Tales’ influence on national policy-making on immigration detention has established the project as an international model for campaigners for migrant rights. Herd has been invited to address numerous audiences of international activists and educators seeking to learn from and emulate the project’s practices in working with immigration detainees, speaking in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Italy, and the USA. He has been asked to advise on projects working with refugees and asylum seekers in Germany and India.

In 2019, Herd was invited to the Kenan Ethics Institute at Duke University to advise volunteers working at refugee camps in Jordan on good practice in relation to refugee testimony. The Director of the Institute wrote that Herd had ‘inspired us to think much more carefully about the impact of our own work’ [f]. By communicating his research in these settings, Herd has extended the reach of both Refugee Tales and GDWG, whilst continuing to maintain international focus on the UK Government’s policy of detention. The project has been cited as a model of civil society activism in publications in Australia, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the UAE, and the USA. In 2019, Herd was interviewed by InfoMIgrant, ‘a news and information site for migrants at every point of their journey’, which reaches over 160,000 migrants worldwide and is supported by France Médias Monde and the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and is co-financed by the European Union [g].

In 2020, Refugee Tales consolidated the international reach of its practice. On 3-5 July 2020, a series of online stories and talks, led by Herd’s introductory film, provided the context for people to walk ‘in solidarity with detainees’ in 20 countries worldwide, confirming the project’s international influence [a].

1. Changing teaching in schools and universities nationally and internationally

Refugee Tales has changed the way the realities of immigration detention are taught at a time when it is increasingly a defining international issue. The three volumes are taught in over 50 universities around the world (including Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow, Cornell, Avanza College, Argentina, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Ottawa, Lodz, and Leiden) and in secondary schools in Denmark, the UK, and the USA. Teachers describe the transformative effect of the books. As a teacher at Rowland Hall High School in Salt Lake City, Utah wrote: ‘My students have responded so well to the text that I first of all just wanted to thank you […].This book could do so much good if read and taught widely’ [h].

That widespread teaching is now a reality. In April 2020, the Oak National Academy developed a series of online lessons for Key Stage 3 Students dedicated to the Refugee Tales books. The Academy is funded by the Department of Education and is the main national provider of home-school education during lockdown, with a reach of 4.7 million visitors. The purpose of the Refugee Tales lessons is to ‘look at how [the project] uses poetic tone to get across the message of how refugees should be treated with respect’, with Herd’s ‘Prologue’ being the sole focus for this discussion [i]. His research has thus directly influenced the way 11-14-year-olds in the UK are taught to think about migration. As a teacher writing in Public Books concluded: ‘As much as Chaucer is the father of English literature, Refugee Tales and the culture it creates can be its future’ [h].

1. Providing a community for people isolated by the UK’s hostile environment

Refugee Tales is unique in the way it has built a community by sharing stories of people who have experienced immigration detention. Stories are first shared in the context of the project’s annual public walk, which since 2015 has taken place across several days and has included, on any given day, up to 200 walkers, approximately 25% of whom have experienced detention. Herd has shaped all walks by commissioning all the talks and tales that constitute their focal points. The annual walks – along with the project’s interim monthly day-long walks – provide a space in which former detainees experience a sense of belonging that is of considerable benefit to their wellbeing. This benefit can only be registered through individual testimony. As ‘R’ (for whom Herd acted as writing mentor) observed in ‘The Volunteer’s Tale’ in 2019: ‘So now I feel, like, you know, I am surrounded by a new family. I can feel that now. And I hope everything stays like that’ [j]. Such accounts of the project’s value have been echoed when people with lived experience of detention have spoken to national media (for example on Ramblings and Today) and in feedback to the project. As a first-time walker said following the 2019 walk: ‘As a refugee in this country, I have never felt so welcome than I did on this particular walk’ [j, k].

Cregan-Reid’s research reached international audiences of more than half a billion through features in diverse media outlets and other venues, both nationally and internationally. These include interviews, national appearances, and panel discussions on BBC Radio 3, 4, and 5, ITV, and readings of his work on BBC Radio 4 and Sky News [c]. International interviews include: two on national services in Canada (peak time reach: 2.3 million), five on Ireland’s Newstalk, two on US National Public Radio (NPR) stations, one on peak-time Sunday evening Brazilian TV, as well as seven podcast interviews [c]. He engaged directly with audiences as a speaker at 20 literary festivals (including Hay) [c], through an invited TEDx talk delivered to a live audience of 1,000 and viewed over 5,000 times on YouTube [d], and through multiple wellbeing talks delivered (nationally and internationally) to a wide variety of audiences. These included, for example, talks on employee health to the car manufacturer Tesla and the business leaders of Cyprus, and talks on sustainability and health to young start-up entrepreneurs at Goldsmiths, University of London. The Academic Lead, Enterprise Goldsmiths, has described these latter talks as ‘conceivably life-changing’, noting also that they have helped ‘[i]n particular participants from the MENA and East Africa regions … [to] move their creative thinking forward’ [e].

Cregan-Reid has written extensively for national and international newspapers, and this journalism has been syndicated all over the world and translated into several languages. Outlets included the Washington Post, Guardian, Sun, Sunday Times, and Telegraph [c]. Highlights include a full-page article in the Observer and a Long Read in the Guardian (which after one day was ‘closing on 500,000’ reads and was shared on social media over 20,000 times [c], spawning discussion and debate across Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook). In 2019 and 2020, Cregan-Reid presented his work to a global audience in the form of two radio series (each 3 x 30 minutes) on the BBC World Service [R4; R5]. He was sole writer and presenter of Changing World, Changing Bodies, aired in the World Service’s flagship slot, The Compass, with each episode ‘broadcast ten times throughout each week to reach audience saturation across the world’s different time zones’, making it available in almost every country across the globe to an audience of 97 million a week and per episode, an aggregate listenership of 395 million [c]. After the first radio series aired, Cregan-Reid was invited onto the BBC World Service’s audience-nominated Over to You (with an audience of about ‘27 million’ **[c]**), where the makers of popular programmes are interviewed and answer audience questions.

Raising awareness of the consequences of sedentary behaviours

Specifically, Cregan-Reid’s research has: changed how global audiences understand the sedentary nature of modern life, in comparison to that of our distant ancestors; helped them to understand how this development occurred; motivated them to change behaviours; and inspired them to reflect on their lifestyles and make positive changes.

Feedback shows that during and after the extensive airing of his work there was both an improvement in public understanding and changes in behaviour. For example, a UK reader of Footnotes [R2] commented that ‘[t]he paradox of this brilliant book … is that each page … has something in it that tempts us to put it down … and join the writer out in the streets and on the trails’ [a]. A reader in Berlin noted: ‘The book really helped to try to understand something which I didn’t understand – why do I get so much out of [running]? … I already want to read it again’ [a]; and one in the US stated: ‘already it has changed my running, allowing me to own what I've always loved about [it] and let go of everything I never really cared about deep down’ [a].

The book [R2] has also enabled readers/listeners/runners to take control over their activity by giving them agency. For example, on hearing an interview with Cregan-Reid on NPR New York a US reader wrote: ‘your book keeps saving my life again and again … you've made my life better but more importantly, I know exactly how to make it better’ [e]. Another reader called the book ‘groundbreaking’ and added that it ‘literally changed [their] outlook, initiated momentum and reinvigorated fundamental interests’ [e].

Readers of Primate Change [R3] were equally engaged and commented in particular on the book’s motivational impact. For example, a reader from the US noted: ‘I am … motivated to be less sedentary’ [a]; and a US couple stated that it ‘definitely helped inspire my wife and myself to make changes in our lives’ [a]. These responses also indicate the global reach of the book. A reader from India noted: ‘[ Primate Change] motivated me to eat healthier and exercise more’ [a]; one from Germany: ‘it made me consider my lifestyle choices and think about what I could improve to live a life my body was better suited to’ [a]; and another from Australia: ‘its key messages have the potential ... to make impactful changes in your daily life’ [a]. An influential UK blogger also wrote it was a ‘potentially life-changing book’ [e].

Improving public health and wellbeing

By generating an international debate to improve understanding of our custody of the body, Cregan-Reid’s work added value and justification to continuing fitness regimes (exercise being an addition to one’s working day), and encouraged increased levels of physical activity (the movement necessary to get through one’s day).

In many responses to Footnotes [R2], readers noted personal health benefits and improvements to their lives. For example, one reader said: ‘I have started to enjoy running, even looking forward to a run’ [e]. Another noted: ‘[I] never previously got much out of [running]. Reading this book has inspired me to keep working at it, but also opened me up to new ways of enjoying it’ [a]. And another stated: ‘[ Footnotes] got me out the door on days when it would have been too easy to have stayed glued to the sofa. As a geography teacher it also helped me to appreciate something I had previously missed; the way running allowed me to explore a landscape and the layers that make it up’ [e]. The impact of Footnotes on readers’ mental health was substantial, too: ‘your book changed my life. For the better. I'm great. The depression is at an all time low and [for] no other reason but your book’ [e]. And: ‘[Cregan-Reid’s] writing has rewired my brain and running will remain a permanent feature in my life!’ [e].

By email and on social media, readers of Primate Change [R3] also shared how Cregan-Reid’s writing and media work has inspired changes in their own and others’ lives: ‘ Primate Change rocked. Your chapter on air pollution freaked me out. I'm now campaigning for better air quality in our area’ [e]. And: ‘[ Primate Change helped] me appreciate the way the modern world was acting against our evolution. It has changed the way I behave in terms of limiting screen time, what I’ll eat and how long I’ll sit for’ [e].

As a key contributor to ITV’s peak-time Tonight Show (formerly Tonight with Trevor McDonald) for a programme on movement and spine health on 28 February 2019 (audience of 3 million and garnering over 3,000 comments on Facebook), and as an interviewee on Radio 4’s You and Yours on 22 April 2016, Cregan-Reid was able to encourage listeners and viewers to reflect more knowledgably on their health and wellbeing behaviours [c]. ‘I was interested and informed with what you said on the radio so job done’ [e], one listener wrote after Cregan-Reid had edited and hosted a live hour on 28 October 2018 of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Afternoon Edition (weekly audience of 5.4 million) on his research [c].

At a grassroots level, Cregan-Reid’s research inspired two initiatives that, according to the CEO of one of the UK’s leading outdoor festivals, have contributed to ‘an international movement to encourage more people to be running in nature and wild places’ [e]. His research informed the content of a ten-part course, ‘A Good Runner’, which aimed ‘to improve the attendees’ engagement with and enjoyment of running’ [f], and was also key to the success of Global Trail Running Day (GTRD). He wrote the prose for the website (his writing later became a free ebook for users to download **[g]**), and on 19 September 2020 75 GTRD ambassadors ran and/or organised runs totalling more than 1,000 miles [f]. The CEO anticipates that ‘in 5 years’ time Global Trail Running Day will be counting its ambassador numbers in the thousands’ [f], with the day now set to become part of the annual running calendar [g].

Enhancing the pedagogy and knowledge exchange of medical practitioners

Primate Change [R3] has also impacted directly on the training of medical practitioners, confirming the comment by one reader who noted that the book was a ‘[f]ascinating, eye-opening read that should be mandatory in med schools and in every household’ [a]. The Director of one of the UK’s leading medical schools wrote in a personal message that the book ‘was so good I bought it twice’, adding that ‘we are currently redesigning our curriculum. I will be shamelessly using examples from your book to emphasise these points’ [e].

A keynote Cregan-Reid delivered at a conference of GPs, trainee GPs, and their teachers at the South East of Scotland Faculty of Clinical Educators’ symposium in 2019 has equally led to changes in the pedagogy of medical schools. The Director of the Clinical Educator Programme at the University of Edinburgh confirms that Cregan-Reid’s ‘talk has contributed to the way that my colleagues are thinking in the process of updating our curriculum … [S]ince your talk, there is a much greater awareness of the importance of teaching medical students to consider how humans are adapting to our changing world’ [e].

Impact on the knowledge and understanding of medical practitioners was also achieved via keynotes at the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, the latter to around 200 movement and manual therapists, biomechanists, yoga and Pilates teachers. The world-leading specialist in Myofascial Release and Structural Integration who organised the event attested that it was ‘an inspiring talk … well received by the attendees’ [e]. Its influence on health and fitness instruction is evidenced in the social media comment by a postural alignment therapist who attended the talk: ‘I just did a week on “Feet and Ankles” in a course I am running (entitled Ancient Body, Modern World) and so much of it was lifted from @vybarrcr amazing book!’ [e].

Cregan-Reid’s research has impacted positively on other medical disciplines and health initiatives. For example, the founder of a public health NGO in Bulgaria, TarnovoRUNS, has confirmed the positive effect on his work of Cregan-Reid’s journalism: ‘those articles give me so much energy and motivation to continue’ [e]. An NHS rehabilitation therapist and Sports Rehabilitator for a football team confirms that reading Primate Change [R3] has given ‘extra buy-ins to help educate my patients on the importance of movement, activity and exercise … it has deepened my understanding of issues that I regularly deal with … I have recommended the book to many of my colleagues and … I have presented your work at some learning days’ [e].

The circulation of Cregan Reid’s research among movement specialists is further confirmed by the director of a physiotherapy practice (a former strength and conditioning coach to Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski): ‘ Primate Change has been the most important book I’ve read as a physio … I recommend this book nearly every day to patients. It has stayed in my top recommendations to coaches and physios ever since. It has improved my lifestyle, my practice, and the lives of so many of my patients … I’m happier and healthier now than before reading the book … it has had a huge impact on my own personal thinking and on my professional approach to physiotherapy … The book has helped me positively change the lives of thousands of patients over the last couple of years’ [e].

Informing Policy-Making and the Public on Palestine and a Conflicted Middle East

Rooney’s research is frequently used by policy-makers and parliamentarians for insights into radicalism and extremism in the Middle East. This has led to Rooney informing policy advice in a range of areas, including cultural soft power, religious literacy, and human rights. Examples during the REF2021 period include the evidence Rooney provided in 2014 to the House of Lords select committee on ‘Soft Power and the UK’s Influence’ (with the ensuing policy report quoting her research); the policy briefing on religious literacy mounted by John Wolfe and launched by Salisbury MP John Glen and Lapido Media in 2015, to which Rooney contributed material, and which has raised journalists’ awareness of how to discuss religious difference in reporting political events; and her regular participation between 2014 and 2016 in the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Global Uncertainties, which included, for example, breakfast meetings on ‘Europe’s role on bringing peace to the Middle East’, ‘Security, religion and radicalisation’, and ‘Terrorist propaganda and social media’. In 2015, Rooney’s role on this AAPG led to the Head of the Home Office’s counter-radicalisation unit to set up a private meeting (under Chatham House rules) to discuss follow-on implications from Rooney’s work on counter-narratives [a].

The most sustained impact of Rooney’s research on policy-makers and the public has been in matters concerning Palestine. In the Palestinian case, impact entails generating public and policy support for the peace process and for Palestinian rights in the face of powerful lobbies, mainstream media, and Western governments that unilaterally support the Israeli government’s position. Rooney has accordingly worked with activists (Palestinian and Israeli) to thwart the censorship of Palestinian concerns. Activist Ghada Karmi confirms that Rooney ‘has been especially successful at engaging audiences over the importance of persisting with a valid Israeli-Palestinian peace process’ [b].

In 2014, Rooney co-produced her play The Keepers of Infinite Space for a nearly sold-out three-week run at the Park Theatre in London, including three platform debates about issues raised in the play, such as cultural resistance, the prison system, and human rights. Reviewers noted the effect of the play on its audiences: ‘it is necessary and bold political theatre, and it will have you thinking for days’ (Everything Theatre); this play ‘takes an iron grip on you’ (WhatsOnStage); ‘This is very much for people who want to see theatre exploring important issues whilst helping to illuminate’ ( Time Out). Al Jazeera featured the production in a news interview to make the point that British theatre could present a humanising view of Palestinian prisoners, thus correcting the international perception of a British lack of concern [c].

In 2015, Rooney collaborated with William Parry, then with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, to co-direct Breaking the Generations [R2], which is based on Rooney’s research into the violation of the medical rights of Palestinian prisoners. The film had a range of public screenings in 2016 and 2017 (e.g., at the 2016 Toronto Palestine Film Festival; at the 2017 Medact Health Through Peace Conference; and at events organised by both Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, including Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association; the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; and Physicians for Human Rights Israel). In 2018, the film was shortlisted for the AHRC Medical Humanities Medal; in 2021, Ken Loach approached co-director William Parry about the possibility of future screenings of the film.

The film has been used to raise awareness among UK parliamentarians for the cause of Palestinian human rights. Rooney chaired a session after a screening of the film at the Holyrood parliament on 9 December 2015, organised by Philippa Whitford, then MP for Central Ayrshire, to brief MSPs on the film’s findings. Subsequent debates included: 1) a Commons debate on 6 January 2016 on ‘Child Prisoners and Detainees in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’, in which Whitford expressly shared the concerns of the film; 2) an address on the possibility for secular democracy in Israel and Palestine by the prize-winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, followed by a Q&A session, on 24 May 2016, organised by Rooney and Richard Burden MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Palestine; 3) a public debate on the peace process and the One State solution with Ilan Pappé and Gideon Levy on 25 May 2016, which attracted 180 attendees and was filmed for YouTube, achieving 27,000+ viewings, with many comments highlighting its importance in demonstrating ways forward [d].

The film [R2] was also taken up as a campaign tool between 2016 and 2017 by Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR) and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). Tareq Shrourou, Director of LPHR, notes that the film ‘has constituted an important campaign tool for us in building platforms with NGOs that share our concerns’, and that it was successful ‘in raising awareness of the issues at stake among different audiences [LPHR] engage[s] with, ranging from law students to lawyers to parliamentarians’ [e]. Dr Aimee Shalan, Chief Executive of MAP, confirms the central use of the film ‘in a letter-writing to MPs campaign’ [e], which resulted in growing support for Early Day Motion 563 on Military Detention of Palestinian Children by Israeli Authorities’, tabled on 20 November 2017, signed by 145 MPs across six parties, and debated in the Commons on 7 February 2018. Marsha de Cordova MP, then Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, echoed the title and argument of the film in her speech at this debate when she noted that the detention of Palestinian children is a ‘system […] designed to repress, crush and intimidate generation after generation of Palestinians’ [d]. The outcome of the debate was a resolution to support justice for child prisoners.

Community- and Trust-Building Through Arts Activism

Rooney’s research has also enabled community- and trust-building initiatives in various post-conflict societies. Her film White Flags [R4], made to disseminate Lebanese expertise on these matters, has been shown in galleries and at events internationally, including in Lebanon, Croatia, Cyprus ( 2015), and Egypt ( 2016), with media coverage. The Nicosia screening on World Poetry Day 2015 exceptionally brought people together across sectarian divides and provided impetus for the ensuing bridge-building anthology Nicosia Beyond Barriers (Saqi Books, 2018), whose editors participated in the event and drew inspiration from it. The film was screened at the Freud Museum, London, in 2015, and it has been taken up by Brazilian psycho-social professionals working in the favelas of Puerto Rico for repeat screenings in the context of the Newton Fund/Brazil-UK Testimonial Clinics Programme and Professional Development Centres for Psychological Repair and Tackling Violence. The UK partner for that cooperation confirms that ‘the film’s ideas on trust building were felt to be most usefully applicable to the psychotherapy practices of Brazilian colleagues’ [f].

Drawing on the Lebanese initiatives explored in White Flags [R4], Rooney furthered local public engagement in post-revolutionary Egypt through involving disadvantaged neighbourhoods in their shared cultural heritage. While heritage is mainly managed at an institutional level in Egypt, Rooney introduced arts activist approaches to community engagement in historic Cairo. Fekri Hassan, former adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, confirms that Rooney’s work helped to ‘open up new venues for how heritage is conceived and to promote investment in literature, music and art as a contribution to Egypt’s cultural capital’ [g]. Ventures included a 2016 memorabilia exhibition mounted by the High Institute for Folk Arts and co-curated with the local residents of El-Moez Street; an art exhibition in 2017 at Beit el-Sinaari showcasing the work of young artists responding to the ‘living heritage’ of the area [g; h]; and workshops in 2016 on Egyptian dream interpretation involving local sheikhs (responsible for the shrine of Ibn Sirin, author of Taabir Al Ro’oya [ Interpretation of Dreams]) and working-class residents in relation to social dreaming. A recent book chapter ( 2019) about these dream interpretation workshops describes their outcomes as ‘a new methodology’ and ‘a shared aesthetic language across cultures’ [i], noting the benefits of the project to the local community.

Rooney’s work with the band Oxford Maqam, a UK-based Arabic ensemble comprising vocalists and musicians, led to the rediscovery a lost strand of musical heritage (the Nahda) being brought to Egyptian musicologists and musicians, enabling them to revive this tradition at a concert on 25 March 2017 at the Egyptian Centre for Culture and the Arts (Makan) in Cairo for the benefit of local audiences [i]. In addition, a new tour guide map of El-Moez Street was produced, together with a new Naguib Mahfouz walking tour map [g; i]. The outputs of the project were taken up by the Egyptian Ministries of Tourism and Culture, with whom Rooney’s Egyptian colleagues have continued to work in the area of folk and popular arts. Fekri Hassan confirms that: ‘One of the main achievements of the project is a policy brief to governments, universities and the public with a plan for future investment in cultural heritage as a driver of economic and social development’ [g].

Furthering Creative Arts Exchanges and Education through Consultancies

Rooney’s expertise in working with artists in the Middle East led to her invitation to act as consultant curator of the 2016 Masāfāt festival organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), taking place in Cairo and London. The Curator of Education Partnerships at the ICA confirms that Rooney’s ‘expertise […] in the area of contemporary Middle Eastern culture was essential for the development of the 2016 Masāfāt Festival’ and led directly to practitioner exchanges between young UK and Arab film-makers and musicians [j]. Rooney has also acted as international consultant for Qatar Foundation arts projects and for research at the Doha Institute ( 2017-18) concerned with understanding the cultural transnationalism of the Arab uprisings. She has briefed civil servants, arts organisation CEOs, funders, and researchers at the Centre for Science and Policy (Cambridge) on social interventions through the arts. This work has resulted in a confidential policy briefing entitled ‘An overview of UK policy priorities and how the arts and humanities can help to address them’, in which Rooney is quoted [k].

In 2019, due to her work on Palestinian child prisoners, Rooney was appointed a Trustee of the charity Ajyal Foundation for Education, which supports the rehabilitation of conflict-affected children through creative educational projects with schools. Rooney’s work on how the prison system is used to break resilience [R1] is central to Ajyal’s new socio-emotional learning programme, as confirmed by its CEO and co-founder: ‘Ajyal has benefitted from [Rooney’s] research on how resilience is undermined in a Palestinian context with a view to how it may be rebuilt, along with the re-building of trust’ [l]. The programme helps to re-engage conflict-affected pupils who are struggling with their schooling through a holistic approach to education. It has been rolled out to six schools in the West Bank with the support of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, directly benefiting ‘103 educators and […] 1885 children currently attending the schools’ [l]. In 2020, Ajyal put together an education pack for Palestinians needing to home school due to social isolation during the pandemic, over which Rooney was consulted [l].

Batchelor’s research and multimedia resources have: enhanced public/professional understanding of women’s lives and work; impacted curriculum design and assessment in UK, US, and European universities; transformed embroidery practice; generated new craftworks; and enhanced makers’ wellbeing.

From 2014, Batchelor developed a public-facing profile and virtual community around her research using Twitter (c. 3,900 followers), Facebook (c. 1,100 followers), and a website/blog (c. 65,000 page views). Followers/community members include makers, historical novelists, collectors, heritage sector professionals, and family genealogists. These pathways to impact led to numerous media requests for expert commentary, including: international journalism (e.g. features for the Russian Ogoniok in 2018 and the UK Who Do You Think You Are? magazine in 2020); various podcasts (including ‘Stitchery Stories’ in 2017 and 2020; ‘Bonnets at Dawn’ in 2019); literary festivals (most notably a 2017 Cheltenham Literary Festival panel on Jane Austen); and TV (including Lucy Worsley’s 2017 BBC documentary, Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors). They also generated new media content/programming about eighteenth-century women’s work, writing, and history. Journalist and author Helen Lewis acknowledges Batchelor’s research on the Lady’s Magazine as ‘crucial’ to the development of the New Statesman’s landmark 2016 ‘Hidden Histories’ podcast series, which promoted public understanding of women writers before Austen. Batchelor guest co-presented three of the six episodes and Episode 3 (‘What did it mean to have a magazine by women?’) ‘focused primarily’ on ‘Batchelor’s research on this important but not popularly well-known publication’ [a].

These media drew on and expanded the reach of Batchelor’s research ( Behind Closed Doors had 2 million viewers on first airing, plus many international repeats) and enhanced public and professional understanding of women’s lives and work. Lewis writes that Batchelor’s New Statesman podcasts ‘shone a light on aspects of women’s lives, women’s history and women’s writing that were previously hidden – and had a great impact beyond the academy’ among ‘listeners around the world’ who still email Lewis about it [a]. Historian, curator, and broadcaster Lucy Worsley notes that Batchelor’s ‘detailed expertise’ and ‘research into The Lady’s Magazine was a wonderful resource to turn to in the preparation of [her] documentary’ [b]. Worsley documents that Batchelor’s ‘detailed expertise on Regency fashion, needlework patterns and the Lady’s Magazine’ ‘provided valuable new insights into the habits of one of the country’s most well-known authors, Jane Austen’, and ‘enhanced’ Worsley’s and viewers’ ‘awareness of the cultural importance of fashion and needlework’ [b].

Via 18th-Century Journals V ( [R4], 2013), her Leverhulme-funded ‘Index’ ( [R5], 2014-16), and multimedia resources, Batchelor has made the Lady’s Magazine’s vast archive navigable to academics and non-academic audiences, including students. From 2016, these resources have had demonstrable impact on undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum design, delivery, and assessment in UK, European, and US universities, including: Cardiff; Southampton; York; Ghent; Uppsala; CSU Long Beach; Cornell College; Oakland; Purdue; and SUNY Brockport. Professor Powell (Purdue), who has used the Index in UG and PG teaching since 2016, describes Batchelor’s research as ‘a major service to the field’ that has changed students’ understanding and knowledge of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by making ‘it possible to bring new material into the classroom and to disrupt the standard stories about what and how readers read’ [c]. Batchelor’s resources have also inspired new assessments and generated new learning methods for undergraduates. For instance, Dr Sagal (Cornell College) documents that Batchelor’s research ‘enabled and encouraged’ her ‘to do things differently in the classroom’ [d]. From 2018, Sagal introduced a ‘material project’ on an eighteenth-century British literature course in which students submit embroidered responses in lieu of written work. The assessment ‘unusually’ allowed undergraduate students to ‘engage in practice-based research’, ‘connected students with real women in the 18c and added a completely different complexion to the class’s discussion of women’s experience and material concerns’ [d].

In 2015-16, Batchelor launched the #StitchOff after uncovering and digitally publishing ‘lost’ patterns from the Lady’s Magazine. Participants, aged 9-80, hailed from three continents and included novice/occasional stitchers, Embroiderer’s Guild members, Royal School of Needlework (RSN) graduates, and professional embroiderers and textile artists. The #StitchOff generated dozens of new craftworks and exhibition content [g]. These include: a) Alison Larkin’s in situ recreation of one of Batchelor’s patterns at Captain Cook Memorial Museum’s ‘Wives and Sweethearts’ exhibition (UK, 2016); b) a replica 1780s work bag that Dylan Laskin Grossman commissioned to fill a collection gap for the ‘Pennies and Purses Exhibition’ ( 2018) at Gibson House Museum (Toronto) – the design for which Batchelor sourced and consulted on; and c) an exhibition room devoted to Regency needlework that Batchelor was invited to curate for Chawton House’s ‘ Emma at 200’ exhibition (Chawton House, 2016) and which featured 40+ international creations from #StitchOff participants. This final exhibition attracted 7,000+ visitors (the largest the House has had) and international press and media coverage (e.g. the journal of the Jane Austen Society of America, Persuasions, The Quilter Magazine, ‘Stitchery Stories’ podcast: combined audience: 13,000+). BSECS Criticks praised the exhibition’s ‘stunning contributions’ and its sparking of ‘new curiosity about the art form’ [e].

#StitchOff participant feedback reveals that the experience transformed makers’ practice and generated individual, cultural, and economic impacts [f]. Pleydell was one of many participants inspired by the #StitchOff to ‘have a go’ at embroidery for ‘the first time’, while new embroiderer Snape states that ‘it did push me to try a couple of stitches and to improve the standard of my needlework generally’ [f]. Amateur/professional embroiders and textile artists alike credit the #StitchOff with teaching them the history of their craft , boosting their ‘respect’ (Davy) for the talent and ingenuity of eighteenth-century women who made these designs by candlelight at ‘speed’ and ‘by eye’, using imperfectly designed patterns and less sophisticated technology (Wright) [f]. RSN graduate Bailey commented that ‘the patterns and wealth of contextual surrounding material’ that Batchelor provided created an ‘immersive, wide-ranging experience’ otherwise unavailable to the ‘modern embroiderer’ [f]. Participants widely praised the #StitchOff’s ‘inclusive attitude’ (Roberts, see also Jones) for breaking down professional, amateur, guild hierarchies to create a ‘community’ (e.g. Martin, Pleydell, Snape, Tapper) of ‘ordinary stitchers’ (Jones) and experts, and, in textile artist Hack’s case, establishing ‘a network that I couldn’t have reached any other way’ that provides ‘inspiration and technical help’ [f]. Others attribute career developments to the experience. Bailey credits the experience of designing embroidery workshops around the patterns with Batchelor at Chawton in 2016 and 2017 as instilling the ‘confidence’ to deliver others; for instance, at the Bath Jane Austen Festival [f]. Young’s #StitchOff exhibit led directly to an opportunity to stage a ‘two woman showcase’ of her work [f]. Martin sold items (T-shirts, greetings cards, mugs) based on her #StitchOff creations on Redbubble and Etsy. Whitechurch writes that the #Stitch Off was ‘the start of the process’ that heightened her interest in the ‘history of textiles’ and led to her ‘to return to studying for a degree in Textile Design’ [f].

Batchelor and Larkin’s Jane Austen Embroidery ( 2020) made the Lady’s Magazine patterns accessible to international audiences. Its publication at the start of the global pandemic generated context-specific therapeutic/mental health benefits, early recognition of which impacts led to Batchelor’s invitation to be interviewed about the book and Covid crafting on BBC Radio 4 You and Yours ( 2020). Dublin-based Comyn documents that she has incorporated Jane Austen Embroidery into her ‘daily routine to manage the stress and feelings of isolation and disconnection associated with the continuing global pandemic’, and that working on the book’s projects has ‘reduced my stress-levels, given much-needed breaks from screen-time and connected me with family and friends overseas’ through gifts made using the book [h]. Glasgow-based McAulay, who had ‘minimal’ experience of embroidery before Batchelor’s projects, has found comfort in the ‘inclusiveness’ and ‘online sense of community’ around the book and its social media, and reports that ‘Batchelor’s research has had a significant impact on me over the past couple of years’, especially in fostering ‘mental wellbeing’, during which time McAulay has produced a stitched lockdown journal using some of Batchelor’s designs [i].These impacts are further corroborated by the September 2020 #CovidCrafting event [g] that Batchelor and Larkin streamed on Facebook and YouTube (3,500+ viewers on Facebook and YouTube combined from the US, Mexico, New Zealand, UK, and Europe), and which features maker videos and testimonials and generated conversation around the work inspired by Jane Austen Embroidery (from embroidered Covid masks to garters and tote bags) [g and h].