Impact

UoA 27 - English Language and Literature

Impact

Research collaboration is central to our impact ethos. We recognise that high quality research is built on networks of collaborators able to make important contributions to local, national and international communities.

Public engagement, when underpinned with critical and creative research, provides a richer cultural environment for communities, contributes to community cohesion, and enriches the lives of individuals. This innovative and collaborative research is at the heart of impacts demonstrated in our two Unit of Assessment 27 case studies: Discovering Ted Hughes Yorkshire and The Brontë Stones Project.

The following impact case studies have been entered for the REF2021 submission. Find out more below.

 

Case study: The Brontë Stones Project: Enhancing cultural participation and creativity through the Literary Landscape

The Brontë Stones Project was designed to respond to the need for greater opportunities for cultural and creative participation by local and international communities in an area of high economic and cultural deprivation. In order to address this need, the project has produced unique and enduring cultural artefacts- Brontë Stones engraved with poetry by four leading women writers and placed in the Yorkshire landscape of the Brontës.

The project has increased local engagement with the landscape, regenerated and preserved ancient public rights of ways, and provided an important stimulus to cultural tourism, contributing to the quality of the tourist experience. The project is underpinned directly by University of Huddersfield research findings that direct experience of the landscape, in relation to literary texts, can enhance creativity.

 

Case study: Discovering Ted Hughes’s Yorkshire

Research conducted at the University of Huddersfield led to the creation of the Hughes Network (THN) in March 2016. The THN is a public-facing research centre focused on the writings of Hughes with a particular brief to unite previously isolated organisations that were working to promote Hughes’s legacy in their respective localities and to encourage collaboration and partnership working.

The THN brought together key stakeholders to form the Discovering Ted Hughes’s Yorkshire Consortium in 2017, which includes: Calderdale and Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Councils, Hebden Royd Town Council, and Patrington Parish Council; The Elmet Trust; and The Ted Hughes Project (South Yorkshire). For these beneficiaries, the research of the THN has: shaped organisational operations and facilitated cross-organisational collaboration; increased knowledge and understandings of Hughes; engaged culturally marginalised groups within their constituencies; and developed cultural offerings for local communities and tourists.