The Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies

The University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies is a dedicated research centre with staff engaged on major multidisciplinary research projects. Its projects on medieval Welsh poetry, the visual culture of Wales, the social history of the Welsh language, the Celtic languages and identity, and Iolo Morganwg and Romanticism have won universal acclaim.

The excellent result achieved in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, with 35 per cent of the research presented by staff being of global standard and 45 per cent being of excellent international standard, confirms its status as an international centre of excellence in the field of Celtic Studies. It attracts funding in support of its research activities from a variety of sources including the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, the University of Wales itself and a number of other charitable organisations. In addition, the Centre is successful in attracting grants in support of its extensive publications programme from such bodies as the Arts Council for Wales Lottery Fund and the Derek Williams Trust and has benefited hugely from the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

In January 2007, the Centre succeeded in winning the largest grant ever made by the AHRC to a higher education institution in Wales (£879,383) which will enable a team of researchers at the Centre to prepare a new and accessible edition – on the web and in print – of the poetry of the renowned Welsh poet Guto’r Glyn (c.1435 – c. 1493).

The Centre’s main long-term project is the Dictionary of the Welsh Language , a standard historical dictionary of the Welsh language. On behalf of the University of Wales, the Centre also administers short-term research projects on language and literature, Welsh history, archaeology and art, and social sciences. It is also responsible for publishing monographs, edited texts and bibliographies, and four learned journals in the name of the University of Wales.

Since 1993 the Centre has been located in a fine building next to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. Close links are fostered with sister departments in higher education institutions in Wales and other Celtic countries. The Centre has an international reputation as a prominent research establishment and provides its research fellows with opportunities to create academic work of the highest standard.