A higher education consortium led by Swansea University has received a major investment towards research into issues relating to wellbeing through the arts and humanities.
The UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has awarded funding to Lles, a consortium of Wales’ universities, working in partnership with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, and Welsh public and third-sector bodies. Over the next four years it will create and fund 28 PhD studentships.
Lles is a Welsh word that means benefit or wellbeing and was chosen especially as this cohort of students will benefit from training and career development and their research on wellbeing will be for the benefit of wider society in Wales and beyond.
The PhD students will be recruited over four years and will explore the artistic, cultural, and social dimensions of wellbeing in a variety of Welsh and international settings, past and present. They will receive a bespoke training programme and also undertake a placement at a Welsh public body to exchange knowledge and skills.
The first cohort of PhD projects which embrace a theme of healthy people and places are:
- Creative Writing and Ecologies of Place in Collective Practice (Bangor University);
- Enabling Activities: Narratives of Health and Wellbeing in Wales and Beyond (Cardiff University);
- The Role of the Expressive Arts in Supporting Language Development and the Impact this has on Well-being among Young Bilingual Learners aged 7-11. (Cardiff Metropolitan University);
- Embedding Illustration in the Co-production of an Infection Prevention and Control Decision Aid for people with Cystic Fibrosis (Cardiff Metropolitan University);
- ‘Co-Creation of Creative Writing Interventions for Hospice and Palliative Care environments (Open University);
- Serious about Play: Childhood, Play and Policymaking in Wales, 1945 to the Present (Swansea University);
- From Gurkha Roots to Welsh Belonging: Learning from the Cultural History and Wellbeing of the Nepalese Community in Wales (University of South Wales); and,
- Understanding Children and Young People’s Experiences of Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse, and Sexual Violence through Arts-based and Storytelling Methods (University of South Wales).
Lles project lead Professor Martin Johnes, from Swansea University, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for both students and for research in Wales. Lles students will not only undertake PhDs but gain valuable training in a wider range of skills that will prepare them to contribute to society in Wales and beyond.
“Their research will show the value of the arts and humanities for understanding and confronting the issues that face society.”
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales said Derek Walker: “Lles represents exactly the kind of long-term, values-driven leadership that the Well-being of Future Generations Act was designed to inspire. By embedding the Act’s goals and ways of working into learning from the very start, this project is equipping students to think beyond the short term and to act for the economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales.”
Lles is one of a number of Doctoral Focal Awards in creative economy and arts and humanities for a healthy planet, people, and place. The doctoral focal awards will champion the next generation of researchers, offering future-facing training in areas vital to the UK’s creative economy, societal wellbeing.
Learn more about research at Swansea University