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Research highlights

Reading academics solve real-world problems, making an impact on culture, policy, health, business and the environment. These research highlight case studies show some of the many ways in which our research is changing the world.

The butterfly effect: studies in butterflies done at Reading have brought about a paradigm shift in conservation work.

The Butterfly Effect

Our research on butterflies has shaped a new approach in environmental policy-making, to create 21st century landscapes that are fit for wildlife.

Reading research is helping people in India avoid deadly snake bites

Preventing snake bite

Reading research is educating rural communities in India on how to avoid deadly snakebite while developing new anti-venom treatments in the lab.

Graham Holloway

exposing vulture crisis

African Vultures are fast becoming the most threatened group of birds in the world. Reading research has collected and analysed data on the birds, spurring conservation action to save them from extinction.

University of Reading flavour centre research has resulted in safer smoked foods with even better flavour.

safer smoked foods

Our scientists are working with industry to make smoked foods taste even better while removing harmful compounds.

Reading research has led to healthier and greener milk.

healthier, greener milk

Our researchers are working with the dairy industry to change the diet of cattle so that they make healthier milk and produce less planet-warming methane.

African chicken farmer

PREDICTING DROUGHT

Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are benefiting from a more reliable way of monitoring rainfall, developed by Reading researchers, helping to predict drought and low crop yields, target aid efforts and pinpoint the best time to plant crops.

Image credit: ILRI Flickr CC BY SA 2

Guts for gold - prebiotics developed by Reading researchers are boosting healthy gut bacteria.

GOOD GUT BUGS

Team GB Olympians had the guts for gold in 2016, thanks to pioneering prebiotics developed at Reading. The product helps healthy bacteria to grow in our guts, and is now commercially available to all.

Image credit: Wellcome, CC-BY-4.0

An elderly person cradles a cup of tea. University of Reading research is informing the management of cancer care in elderly people, changing practice and medical education.

BETTER CANCER CARE

Elderly people with cancer are getting better care thanks to a research partnership with clinicians at the Royal Berkshire Hospital which has shaped international guidelines, government policy and medical training in managing cancer in older people.

Image from the University of Reading

VIRTUAL ROME

An award-winning digital model of Ancient Rome has reached tens of thousands of people worldwide, providing a 3-dimensional view of the entire city, from any angle, at any time of day.

Rethinking childhood vision - Reading research is shaping clinical practice

RETHINKING INFANT VISION

Young babies often develop temporary squints as they learn to track movement - but Reading research shows only 3% of infants will have a genuine squint after four months. This finding has saved around 15,000 hospital appointments per year in the UK and is re-shaping clinical practice.

Detail of an inscribed block at Jerwan Aqueduct in Iraq - the University of Reading is working to save cultural heritage in this area through archaeological research.

SAVING HUMAN HERITAGE

Reading archaeologists are working with the Iraqi government, the UN and antiquities staff on the ground in Iraq to preserve and protect the country’s precious cultural heritage.

Image credit: Daniele Morandi Bonacossi/Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project

Punk on stage lit by spotlight

ARCHIVING ANARCHY

Fanzines, posters, tickets and memories from the punk scene in Norwich 1976 to 1984 have come together in a unique history project, Punk in the East, where Norwich punks collate and archive their own social history.

Image credit: thephotounit.co.uk

An adult and child sit at a table talking. Reading researchers have developed effective parent therapy for anxiety in children.

PARENT THERAPY

Help is within closer reach for children and adolescents with anxiety thanks to a new parent-delivered therapy developed by Reading psychologists. What’s more it is effective in over 70% of patients and is 23% cheaper than the alternative.

forensic assessment of a human skull

DIVERSE ROMAN BRITAIN

Contrary to what we might think, Roman Britain was an ethnically diverse place with immigrants from as far away as Africa and the Middle East. Our research is shedding new light on Roman Britain by bringing together the analysis of archaeological finds with forensic assessments of skeletons.

Image credit: Yorkshire Museums

A virtual reconstruction of Glastonbury Abbey in the Anglo Saxon period based on research at the University of Reading

GLASTONBURY ABBEY REVEALED

Glastonbury Abbey is internationally renowned as both the site of the earliest church in England and the legendary burial place of King Arthur. An ambitious research collaboration has reinterpreted its archaeology, made results of 20^th century excavations public for the first time and influenced policy on conservation, collections, interpretation and visitor experience.

Image credit: Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, University of York