The University of Wales (Welsh: Prifysgol Cymru) is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff – the university was the first university established in Wales, one of the four countries in the United Kingdom. The university was, prior to the break up of the federation, the second largest university in the UK.
A federal university similar to the University of London, the University of Wales was in charge of examining students, while its colleges were in charge of teaching. Historically, the University of Wales was the only university in Wales until the establishment of the University of Glamorgan in 1992.
In 2007, the University of Wales changed from a federal structure to a confederal one, and many of the constituent colleges became independent universities. Following a number of controversies in the late 2000s involving overseas affiliates, cheating and student visas,[2] a decision was made to abolish the university as it then existed.
University College Wales (now Aberystwyth University) was the oldest founding member of the University of Wales
The University of Wales was founded in Wales in 1893 as a federal university with three foundation colleges: University College Wales (now Aberystwyth University), which had been founded in 1872; University College North Wales (now Bangor University); University College South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University). The last two had been founded following the Aberdare Report in 1881. Prior to the foundation of the federal university, these three colleges had prepared students for the examinations of the University of London.
A financial crisis in the late eighties caused UWIST and University College Cardiff to merge in 1988, forming the University of Wales College Cardiff (UWCC). In 1992 the university lost its position as the only university in Wales when the Polytechnic of Wales became the University of Glamorgan (now part of the new University of South Wales).
Re-organisation
The university was composed of colleges until 1996, when the university was reorganised with a two-tier structure of member institutions in order to absorb the Cardiff Institute of Higher Education (which became the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), now known as Cardiff Metropolitan University) and the Gwent College of Higher Education (which became University of Wales College, Newport (UWCN)). The existing colleges became constituent institutions and the two new member institutions became university colleges. In 2003, both of these colleges became full constituent institutions and in 2004 UWCN received permission from the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Wales, Newport.
Cardiff University (which had been known briefly as the University of Wales, Cardiff, between 1996 and 1999) and the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) merged on 1 August 2004. The merged institution, known as Cardiff University, ceased to be a constituent institution and joined a new category of 'Affiliated/Linked Institutions'. While the new institution continued to award University of Wales degrees in medicine and related subjects, students joining Cardiff from 2005 to study other subjects were awarded Cardiff University degrees.[needs update]
At the same time, the university admitted four new institutions. Thus, North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (NEWI), Swansea Institute of Higher Education and Trinity College, Carmarthen (who were all previously Associated Institutions) along with the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (which was previously a Validated Institution) were admitted as full members of the university on 27 July 2004.
The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama subsequently left the university in January 2007. More changes followed in September 2007 when the university changed from a federal structure to a confederation of independent institutions, allowing those individual institutions which had gained the status of universities in their own right to use the title of university – these institutions are Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, Glyndŵr University (formerly the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (NEWI)), Swansea Metropolitan University and Swansea University.
In November 2008, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Swansea Universities decided to exercise their right to register students to study for their own awarded degrees.
Scandal and merger
In 2010 the university broke its links with a Malaysian college after it was discovered its director had bogus qualifications, while a Thai institution linked to the university was found to be operating illegally. In June 2011, a report from the Quality Assurance Agency found that the university had not run the necessary checks on institutes delivering courses it validated, and instructed it to review all of its validation arrangements.[5] In October, the university announced that it would cease validating courses, just before news broke that one of its affiliated colleges in London was involved in a visa fraud.[6][7][8] This led to calls from the vice chancellors of the universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Glamorgan and Swansea for the University of Wales to be wound up.[9]
It was announced later in October that the University of Wales would be "effectively abolished", and merged into the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD),[10][11][12][13][14] which itself merged with Swansea Metropolitan University[15] on 1 August 2013. In August 2017 a deed of union was approved by the University of Wales and UWTSD, which integrated the two universities into a single functional body prior to a full legal constitutional merger; as of February 2020 this full merger has not been finalised.[16][17][18] As part of the work towards merger, custody of the university's Gregynog Hall and its estate was transferred to the newly created Gregynog Trust in July 2019.[19]
The administrative office of the University of Wales is located in Cardiff's Civic Centre. In addition to its work with the accredited institutions in Wales, the university also validates schemes of study at some 130 centres in the UK and across the world, though it is currently in the process of bringing this current validation model to a close. It runs a highly rated research centre, the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (incorporating the Welsh Dictionary Unit), which is adjacent to the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.[20] The first edition of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (The University of Wales Dictionary), which has the same status for Welsh as the OED does for English, was completed in 2002, eighty-two years after it had been started. The University of Wales Press[21] was founded in 1922 and publishes around seventy books a year in both English and Welsh. The university also has a study and conference centre at Gregynog, near Newtown.[22]
In September 2007, three universities applied for a change to their royal charters to give them the power to award their own degrees, instead of University of Wales degrees. Aberystwyth University, Bangor University, and Swansea University now all award their own degrees.[35][36]
The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) already had its own degree awarding powers, inherited from Saint David's College, Lampeter, which were put into abeyance when Lampeter joined the University of Wales in 1971. From then on, Lampeter awarded Wales degrees but its own licences and diplomas. When the merger between UWTSD and the University of Wales is complete, the new unified institution will award degrees under the historic 1828 royal charter of Saint David's College.
Cardiff University and the University of Wales College of Medicine were full members of the University of Wales but left following their merger in 2004. The merged institute awarded its own degrees to students admitted since 2005, except in medicine and related subjects which continued to be awarded University of Wales degrees until 2011. Cardiff University had previously merged with the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, another college of the University of Wales, in 1988.
A number of institutions were not accredited by the university, but had some of their courses validated by it.[38] There was some publicity and questioning of the quality of these external courses,[39][40] and in October 2011, in response to changes in higher education in Wales, including the university's merger, the university announced that it would launch a new academic strategy which would see the institution only award degrees to students on courses designed and fully controlled by the university. All existing students at validated institutions are able to continue the remainder of their studies for a University of Wales award and will have continuous support.[41][42][43]
List of vice-chancellors of the University of Wales
^"Statue of John Viriamu Jones". National Recording Project. Public Monuments and Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
^Keith Robbins (28 October 2015). "SUNDERLAND, ERIC (1930–2010)". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
^'CLEMENT, Prof. (Robert) Marc', Who's Who 2017, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2016; online edn, Nov 2016 accessed 3 July 2017
Bibliography
Official histories of the University
The University of Wales: A Historical Sketch D. Emrys Evans, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1953. Published to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the University of Wales. It is illustrated with black-and-white photographic plates, and contains appendices listing 'Authorities and Officers of the University' and 'Professors and Other Heads of Departments' since 1873.
The University of Wales: An Illustrated History Geraint H. Jenkins, University of Wales Press, Cardiff. 1993. Published to mark the centenary of the University of Wales.
