Has OU research had an effect on your life or work?

Research at the OU aspires to influence policy, shape professional practice and enrich lives. The OU wants to continue to do research that changes lives in this way and is calling on you to help with this mission.

The way in which UK government research funding is allocated has changed. As from next year universities like the OU are required to show direct evidence of how research has impacted on people’s lives. The new system will give a higher rating to research that has impact and benefits for society.

This is where you come in. The OU would like to hear from you about how the university’s research has influenced your life or work so that we can add new evidence to our impact statements and influence the allocation of funding for future research in these areas.

Just to remind you of some of the highlights of our research over the past two years, OU researchers… 

• Are examining the cultural identity and emergence of Black British Jazz (BBJ).
• Developed a new computer toolkit called nQuire which gives children the power to be scientists making new discoveries.
• Relaunched the UK Reading Experience Database (RED), which provides fascinating insight into the habits and practices of British readers during the period from 1450 to 1945. Google Analytics shows the site attracted almost 12,000 unique visitors and over 3,000 repeat visitors over 12 months in 2010-11.
• Developed new techniques to help financial traders to manage their emotions and make better decisions. A key part of this project has been the development of a set of interventions and online resources that can be used to help investors recognise their emotional biases during financial decision making and, where appropriate, to address these biases.
• Issued a report looking at bisexual inclusion and equality issues. The Bisexuality Report has been downloaded over 15,000 times since its publication in February 2012.
• Are building up a picture of the experiences of older kitchen users, which will be used to improve guidance in kitchen design. This work led to our researcher informing the British Standards Institute’s B/599 Access to Buildings for Disabled People’s Committee.

Have you got involved with or been influenced by any of these projects or any other OU research? Has this or any other aspect of OU research inspired you to do something new or view something differently?

Are you in a position to help the university engage decision-makers with our research in new and significant ways, such as product innovation, policy change, or new ways of working in a professional field? If so, we would like to hear from you. If OU research has made an impact on your life in some way, please email platform@open.ac.uk and let us know.