The South Wales Centre for Historical and Interdisciplinary Research (SWCHIR) exists to promote a dedicated research environment that meets the needs of the diverse communities and cultures in south Wales. It works in conjunction with Bwrdd Prosiect Hanesyddiaeth and History Research Wales. SWCHIR aims to foster better appreciation of the relationship between local, regional and national history and related disciplines, and to contextualise its research by exploring the interaction between communities in different historical periods and environments.
The rich archival and artefactual holdings in south Wales repositories afford opportunities to foster empirical investigations into otherwise under-researched regional projects. This emphasis underpins the Centre's strategy to develop cutting-edge research, new historical methodologies and inter-disciplinary perspectives.
Current major research projects include:
• Leading-edge digital technologies in heritage interpretation (in conjunction with the Institute for Digital Learning, the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales and Cadw)
• Computer based mapping and landscape visualisation study of Iron Age south-east Wales (collaborative project with UWIC)
• The transformation of the Gower landscape from the late Roman period to the early medieval one, c. AD 250 – 800.
• Death, tombs and commemoration in medieval and Reformation Wales (part funded by the British Academy)
• Welsh settlement in colonial Pennsylvania
• Poverty and poor relief in early modern Wales
• British/Irish/Italian relations in the ‘Age of the Risorgimento’
• The experiences of women in post-war south-east Wales
• Landscape and vegetation studies: legacies of human progress and conflict
• Computer-mediated religious conversion experiences
• Documenting the Jewish Community in Cardiff
• Medieval wall paintings in Wales (in conjunction with the National History Museum, St Fagan's)
SWCHIR encourages wider community involvement in its work, especially research which focuses upon the relationship between history, belief, heritage and the environment. It has close ties with heritage and community organisations including record offices in south Wales, the National Museum of Wales, regional tourism agencies, the Churches Tourism Network and the South Wales Record Society. Members of SWCHIR make a major contribution to the new Gwent County History, editing three of the five volumes and contributing numerous chapters. The annual series of research seminars and lectures is also open to the public.