Research Themes: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Who we are:

Researchers in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences undertake award-winning, internationally excellent, and impactful research. Our research ranges from language and literature, music and media, to financial studies, communication, technology studies, regulation, justice, identities, and community studies. Across different disciplines, we combine academic excellence with community engagement, policy impact, and creative and cultural contributions. The College’s research is organised around three schools:

Our research is firmly grounded in a sense of place through culture, materiality, mediality, literature, language, music, history, technology and institutions, along with an interest in the changing nature of communities, nations, structures of governance, and justice. This is reflected in our research themes set out below which allow researchers from across the College and the wider University to collaborate and produce innovative, interdisciplinary, and world leading research. This approach is not intended to exclude or diminish specific areas of research excellence outside these themes but provides a broader set of thematic issues around which much of our research can coalesce.

Research Excellence Framework 2021

Within the theme of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences we are submitting to the following Units of Assessment:

UoA 17 - Business and Management Studies
UoA 21 - Sociology (including relevant contributions from Social Sciences, Media, Law, History, and Natural Sciences)
UoA 26 - Modern Languages and Linguistics (including relevant contributions from Creative Arts, Celtic Studies, Music and Law)
UoA 27 - English Language and Literature (including relevant contributions from History, Music and Creative Writing)

Case Studies on the impact of our research can be found below.

REF 2021 Impact Case Studies

Showcasing the range of impact case studies submitted by ��ϲʹ��'s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

European Travellers to Wales: 1750-2010 Case Study

REF 2021 IMPACT CASE STUDY European Travellers to Wales 1750-2010

Researchers develop completely new resources for studying Wales, and broaden travel writing to encompass more than English-language portrayals of Wales.

REF 2021 Impact Case Study Constraining the loyalty penalty and complexity costs in retail financial service markets

Research findings on the loyalty penalty inform UK and EU regulations.

REF 2021 Impact case study A Language for Living: Fostering the Use of Welsh in Daily Life

Our researchers have significantly developed the understanding of Welsh language use and language transmission impacting Welsh Government language policy.

Constraining the loyalty penalty and complexity costs in retail financial service markets. 

REF 2021 Case Study - Interchange payment card fees and two-sided markets

Interchange fees and two-sided markets: influencing the EU regulation on payment card fees

Enabling effective and fast decision-making in organisations: forecasting with the Theta Method

REF 2021 Case Study - Emotional Artificial Intelligence

Emotional AI: Governance, Ethics and Society

‘Veillance’: Digital Power & Accountability in an Era of Mutual Watching

Language technology for Welsh as a less-resourced language

European Travellers to Wales: Enhancing Heritage; Inspiring Tourism; Enabling Engagement

A Language for Living: Fostering the Use of Welsh in Daily Life

Creative Writing, Translation and Cross-Cultural Understanding: Placing Wales in the World.

Reframing Medieval Texts for Contemporary Audiences

Our Research Centres

Research Groups and Centres are a central part of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, providing a framework for promoting and facilitating research, collaboration and postgraduate teaching initiatives.

Find out more

Our Research Themes

��ϲʹ�� has a proud tradition of world-leading research in Celtic studies, with particular focus and international links on the history, culture, literature, language, and politics of Wales. We house some of Wales’ leading research centres, which are directed by prominent Welsh historians, experts in Welsh law, Welsh culture, music, literature and poetry. Our research centres and research groups include:

Research Centre Wales
R.S. Thomas Centre
Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates
Centre for Arthurian Studies

Our researchers explore and practice aspects of culture and arts and gather understanding of the components of civil society which strengthen community resilience to cope with contemporary changes and challenges. Based on significant archival and contemporary resources combined with artistic activity, we actively contribute to community culture and the arts to provide a place for the study of civil society in action. Our research centres include:

Centre for Contemporary Poetry
Stephen Colclough Centre for the History and Culture of the Book
Centre for Film, Television, and Screen Studies

Communities across the world are connected by a complex web of governance, financial, and economic links, human migration, and questions around the scope and nature of institutions and principles of justice. The competing interests of local communities, nation states, and global and international economic systems require responsive research on regulations and governance, institutions, and community studies. Our economists, lawyers, social scientists and historians explore these complex links and how they are affected by questions of power, politics, and global challenges. Relevant research institutes include:

Centre for Sustainability
Institute for European Finance
Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD)
Emotional AI Lab

Facilitated by its location in a bilingual environment, ��ϲʹ�� has outstanding strengths in areas of multi- and bilingualism and language use across communicative contexts, encompassing research excellence in language policy and planning, first and second language acquisition, discourse analysis and corpus studies, community and civil society use of language and its implications for identity, as well as the role of technology in language development. Additionally, research in this theme raises broader questions about the relationship of language and communication as a form of power, through corporate communications, ethics, journalism, persuasive communications and the media. In this theme, we are working closely with colleagues across the University and in particular colleagues in Canolfan Bedwyr and the Language Technology Unit. Our research centres and networks include:

Centre for Research on Bilingualism
Centre for Galician Studies in Wales
Media and Persuasive Communication Network
Technology and Language Research Network

True Experts in their field

Translating our research on arts and culture into creative activities

��ϲʹ�� is home to the state-of-the art Pontio Arts and Innovation centre helping to translate our research on arts and culture into creative activities which is then brought directly to our local communities. Our creative contributions come from a number of schools in the College – School of Music and Media, School of Languages, Literatures, Linguistics - include Composing the experience of dementia – a collaboration with colleagues in Health Sciences; Vertical Dance performances; award-winning poetry and novels; films and events – for example, the only one of its kind in the UK to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Colleagues have won many accolades in their respective fields.

Expertise which is recognised nationally and internationally

Researchers in the ��ϲʹ�� Business School play an active role in the regulation and governance of financial and economic institutions nationally and internationally, providing insights on important and topical themes through advanced modelling of credit and uncertainty; and financial regulation, competition, and corporate governance in banking. The ��ϲʹ�� Law School makes a substantive contribution to the development of legislative and policy processes of Wales and its developing institutions of justice through research on fundamental questions of justice and policies in place to protect the vulnerable. The Law School’s expertise in questions of procurement is recognised nationally and internationally.

Wales' finest creative writers

The School of Welsh and Celtic Studies has an outstanding tradition of being home to some of Wales’ finest creative writers. Amongst current members of staff. Davies and Williams have each won the Crown at the National Eisteddfod, and Hunter and Price have won the major prose prize for recent novels. Lynch, also, is a nationally prominent poet and critic, especially of strict-metre poetry.

Developing a unique journalistic resource

A practicing journalist, Ifan Morgan Jones, School of Languages, Literatures, Linguistics and Media has developed a unique journalistic resource for Wales, nation.cymru, to help fill the democratic gap in Welsh media coverage. It has become the go-to resource for Welsh politics, featuring contributions from Welsh politicians.

Research Projects

Improving public procurement systems

Dr Ama Eyo is a Lecturer in Public Procurement Law whose research focuses on improving public procurement systems with an aim to reduce the potential for corruption and misuse of public funds. She works with a broader team of colleagues in the Law School looking how procurement can be used barriers to sustainability.

WISERD Civil Society II (2019-2024): Borders, Boundaries and Migrations

Examining factors shaping civil society engagement with migration and exploring how social boundary activation mechanisms are articulated by civil society groups.

Stanley Kubrick

Dr Nathan Abrams, Professor in Film, has been researching the legendary director Stanley Kubrick since 2012. He has organised and participated in various scholarly and public encounters one of which led to his discovery of the ‘lost’ Burning Secret screenplay which no one had seen in over 50 years.

Emotional AI in Cities

Cross cultural lessons from UK and Japan on designing for an ethical life (2020-22).

Associated Industry Partners

Researchers in the College act as consultants, advisers, experts, and council members, and work with a range of Industry, Government, and public service partners, as well as non-governmental organisations across a range of research projects. These include:

Welsh Government
Law Society
North Wales Police
SMEs in North Wales
Siemens
European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, Welsh Revenue Authority, British Accounting and Finance Association
Local charities and social enterprises (e.g. Menter Fachwen)
Cultural organisations: BBC, S4C, International Feature Films, Wales International Documentary Festival, Sheffield Documentary Festival, Llangollen International Festival. BAFTA,BFI.

Visiting Scholars

The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences warmly welcomes applications from scholars around the world to join our academic community. Our staff are internationally renowned in their field of expertise and with many years of experience in research supervision. We aim to:

Provide academic scholars with the opportunity to carry out research with a view to publication in a reputable academic journal of international standing;
Enhance the research community at the College through the active participation of visiting scholars, through the delivery of guest lectures, participation in ourresearch seminar series, and interaction with our research staff and postgraduates;
Foster academic links with other universities and research institutions worldwide.

In case of interest, please either contact a member of staff close to your research area directly to enquire aboutthe possibility of becoming a visiting scholar, or contact Visiting Scholar CAHSS Enquiries visitcahb@bangor.ac.uk for details, terms and conditions, and support in identifying a member of staff to contact.

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