Our Welsh Language Strategy: Yr Alwad/Embrace it
The Senate and Council approved our Welsh Language Strategy in November 2020.
Named Yr Alwad/Embrace It, the strategy is both a commitment and an invitation and builds on existing Welsh language initiatives, networks and activities. It provides a defined cultural and community agenda that complements and enhances the university’s overarching research, teaching and international ambitions.
The strategy embodies the values of connectivity, diversity, sustainability, wellbeing, cultural understanding and duty to future generations. The strategy’s ambitions were identified and inspired by our staff, students, partners and stakeholders.
Summary
These objectives are set out with the recognition that they can be achieved only by acknowledging the interdependency of our activities and the need to develop an integrated approach to the Welsh language:
Academic renewal
We will connect and enhance our provision, our services and our ways of working academically and professionally to improve the Welsh-language student and staff experience
Student recruitment
We aim to attract greater numbers of high-achieving Welsh-domiciled undergraduates by emphasising the bilingual credentials that differentiate us from our Russell Group competitors and connect us to global communities
The student experience
We will innovate in the form of cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional provisions and activities that create a sense of belonging to the university and to the wider communities that sustain it
Working conditions
The operation of the strategy will contribute to working patterns that emancipate rather than create burdens for staff and encourage greater appreciation of those working to realise our Welsh-language aspirations, fostering a stronger sense of belonging and contentment among staff
Branding
The strategy will enable a fuller engagement with and experience of bilingualism, multilingualism and the dynamics of Welsh culture, providing opportunities for developing our distinctive, multifaceted global brand
Research
We will harness our distinctive language profile to lead cross-disciplinary innovation concerning research and its public impact
Inclusivity
The strategy will enhance cultural understanding of the Welsh language as part of a wider effort to ensure inclusivity across all our activities
Sustainability
Focusing on and contributing to the sustainability of the Welsh language in a world where thousands of languages face extinction connects our goals with a global effort to understand how we can change societal norms and behaviours – developments that are necessary if we are to ensure the conservation of our environment, the natural world and our culture
Our commitment
We are committed to promoting and celebrating the Welsh language in all our activities and to developing them in ways that support and expand the collective ambitions and aims of The Way Forward as they relate to our civic mission, education and research excellence, recruitment, widening participation, sustainability, and our impact as a transformative social actor.
Ensuring the Welsh language is embedded in our identity, operations, communities and day-to-day practices in a way that includes all our staff and students is the route to realising these commitments.