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School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology

Research in the School of History, Welsh History and Archaeology

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In the last Research Assessment Exercise, the School improved its position substantially, with half of its work judged to be at the highest grades of 3* and 4*, and 85% seen as internationally competitive. The percentage of world-leading publications was exceptionally high for a school of our size, whilst we are delighted that the support which we give to postgraduate students and to their training was highlighted.

Progress in this RAE period has been evolutionary, but dramatic. In 2001, Bangor was already engaged in some exceptionally large research projects. Since 2001, we have allowed research leaders the time necessary to complete and publish this work, helping with the multiple grant applications that part-funded their activities and enabling them to develop discussion within their subject communities. The result is work of exceptional size and significance. Nancy Edwards' corpus of early medieval inscribed stones and stone sculpture in south-west Wales (568 pages) is the second of a three volume study, supported by various external grants and bodies and completed through a prestigious British Academy Research Readership. Karl's Habilitationsschrift (609 pages) on early Celtic social structures ranges over countries and disciplines, archival and material evidence, setting out a challenging hypothesis in a highly contested area. Pryce's 958 page edition appeared in 2006. Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies suggested that such a study 'appears only once or twice in a generation', whilst J. B. Smith suggested it is of 'exceptional importance in the historical study of medieval Wales (and an) . . . invaluable contribution to Welsh and broader historical studies' (Archaeologia Cambrensis). Claydon's 382 page study of pan-European Protestantism, the product of six years work, appeared in 2007 with C.U.P. Two large ESRC funded projects, both led from Bangor, will produce works of comparable scale by 2008. These projects - on the economic position of pre-modern Wales (Powell) and on devolution ( Tanner, Griffith, Edwards) - add weight to the agenda-setting outputs which they include in this RAE submission. The devolution project was described as a future 'landmark study' in the post-project ESRC evaluation (2006) and rated 'outstanding' - a grade given to just 25% of funded projects. Powell's two ESRC grants, also rated 'outstanding', have produced resources which are very widely used to study and compare governance and economy across pre-modern Britain, plus articles which question much received wisdom about Wales itself.

The second basis of our success has been international recruitment from: Canada (Toronto, Ahronson); Switzerland (Zurich, Koller); the USA (Emory, Collins); Austria (Vienna, Karl, via Aberystwyth) and Germany (Berlin, Sedlmaier, via Oxford). We have consciously recruited early career scholars with potential (Ahronson, Cavill, Clarke, Conneller, A. Edwards, Hagger, Johns, Johnston, Mitchell, Robinson), making considerable efforts to aid their development as scholars. In part as a result, our submission includes more monographs than in 2001. Some recruits have naturally moved to permanent positions at Universities whose location matched their needs (e.g. Manchester, Conneller; Sheffield, Johnston; Southampton, Clarke; St. Andrews, Mitchell). These changes have facilitated strategic re-evaluations, producing a staff base which matches our research strategy more closely.

To compete with the best research-led universities, we have focused staff resources in a few clusters of genuine excellence - Celtic Archaeology, Medieval and Early Modern Britain, and Modern/Contemporary British/European History. We have maximised the impact of these clustered appointments by linking across Schools to Bangor staff with comparable interests and by building national and international research networks, using well-resourced cross-disciplinary research institutes and managerial direction from the College of Arts and Humanities.

Bangor's ambition in our three areas of strength has thus been matched by contributions to the broader research community. The scale and regularity of this contribution is a major departure from RAE 2001. We now play a leading role in supporting the international study of Welsh history. Pryce is co-editor of the Welsh History Review. He has supported the study of Medieval Wales in Harvard (where he is external supervisor for several PhD students), a development which we have tried to extend. In 2006-7 Bangor sent more staff to the Harvard Celtic Studies Congress and to conferences of the North American Welsh Studies Association than any other University. These links are reinforced through Bangor's AHRC research network grant to study the Welsh diaspora (organised by WISCA) and are led at the modern end by A. Edwards (who has spoken at five relevant US conferences with School or external support to develop these contacts). We have supported other developments: in France, through Tanner's papers at the Celtic Studies centre in Brest and in Nantes (2007) - and in Germany (by hosting visitors from Leipzig and Tubingen). Edwards, Pryce and Tanner have examined theses on Welsh history and Celtic archaeology originating in Germany and Australia and are regularly used by UK journals and publishers. We have given advice and research facilities to over 50 overseas researchers and research students, crossing disciplines from archaeology (Karl, largely from Europe), through to medieval history (Pryce, largely USA) and cultural studies and anthropology (Tanner, Italy, Germany and the USA). In 2007, the School added a new archaeological laboratory to its research facilities. WISCA also houses premier-league equipment, including sophisticated microfilm reader/printers, scanners and high quality audio recording/transcribing equipment. It provides a well-equipped venue for seminars, postgraduate teaching and conferences. Library facilities in our three core areas are excellent. In medieval and early modern history, digital resources (such as Early English Books On-line) are supplemented by the results of funded research (Pryce, N. Edwards and Powell). In modern history, microfilm purchases have created a Labour party archive which few universities can match, whilst our growing collection of transcribed interviews is a major resource for contemporary Welsh history. Both are heavily used by postgraduates.

The school embraces the AHRC's emphasis on knowledge transfer. Archaeologists have developed close relationships with museums and archaeological and heritage bodies in Wales and Austria (e.g. N. Edwards: Cadw Ancient Monuments Board for Wales, National Museum of Wales; Karl: Verein österreichischer Museumsarchäologen, Oberösterreichische Landesmuseen, Keltendorf Mitterkirchen). Other contributions include collaboration with documentary film companies (Pryce, A. Edwards, Tanner).