The Design Against Crime Research Centre at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London, undertakes practice-led design research aimed a reducing opportunities for crime.
Impacts include:
• Improving the UK’s economic competitiveness by creating new innovative products, such as chairs and clips that reduce the opportunity for bag theft, and secure bike stands.
• Feeding directly into public policy by offering new ways of preventing crime.
• Creating consultative multi-stakeholder networks that deliver multi-agency approaches that generate new solutions to reducing crime.
• Delivering benefits to the quality of life by helping to reduce instances of crime.
There have also been international links. For example, Grippa, an anti-theft bag clip for use in bars and restaurants, was shown at the ‘Safe – Design Takes on Risk’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This attracted interest from the Manhattan Robbery Squad and Starbucks Senior Management, highlighting how relatively simple dissemination activities, coupled with the right motivation, can lead towards making links with potential users and beneficiaries.
The Bike Off – Reducing Bike Theft project has designed and prototyped six secure cycle parking stands, which have been used in Camden, York, Shoreditch, Brighton & Hove, and Ashford in Kent. These developments came out of collaborations with commercial partners, and through links with local councils. There has also been interest in purchasing or licensing the designs in Spain and Poland.
Research findings also contribute to public policy groups and initiatives. The Centre, for example, works in collaboration with the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at UCL, the UK Designing Out Crime Association and Secured by Design, which is the UK Police flagship initiative supporting the principles of designing out crime. Professor Lorraine Gamman, the Centre’s Director, is a project leader within the Design and Technology Alliance, a Governmental group established to ensure the benefits of design against crime are realised within the UK. The Centre has also provided guidance on crime reduction to the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit, the Home Office, and the European Forum on Urban Safety, amongst others.
For Further details on this project:
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/About/Publications/Documents/DAC%20Brochure.pdf
http://www.designagainstcrime.com/index.php
Further information:
These short overviews have been produced as an aid to understanding some of the impacts arising from arts and humanities research. The examples are taken from existing AHRC projects, ranging from small awards up to large Research Grants and Centres. They are not exhaustive; impact from research takes many forms. It can occur at any stage of the research process, from its beginning to well after the research itself has finished.
The Research Councils define impact as the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy. This definition accords with the Royal Charters of the Councils and with HM Treasury guidance on the appraisal of economic impact. Impact embraces all the extremely diverse ways in which research-related knowledge and skills benefit individuals, organisations and nations by:
• fostering global economic performance, and specifically the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom
• increasing the effectiveness of public services and policy, and
• enhancing quality of life, health and creative output
These case studies offer some, but in no way all, of the diversity and variety of those impacts. They are not, however, intended as guidance on completing the Impact Requirements sections on proposals, for which you should refer to the Je-S guidance for Standard Grant proposals and Fellowship proposals.
It should also be remembered that the impacts described here will not necessarily be replicated by undertaking the same activities. The pathways to impact are as diverse and varied as the impacts themselves. These examples can, however, provide some illustration of what can be achieved.