An institute to support, promote and disseminate research in the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts will open this Monday (October 25).

BIRTHA (the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts) will be launched by Professor Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, in the Wills Memorial Building.

Paul Langford, Rector of Lincoln College and Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and the first Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), and Nigel Llewellyn, Professor of History of Art at the University of Sussex and Director of Centres of the AHRB, will speak at the launch about the new developments in research and funding in the arts and humanities.

The Faculty of Arts is the second largest faculty of the University, comprising 14 departments. The faculty is committed to collaborations between its departments, and offers a wide range of postgraduate programmes. Ten of the 14 departments obtained a grade 5 or 5* in the last Research Assessment Exercise.

The Faculty of Arts already has a number of existing centres and institutes and five newly created themes, which will provide a focus for collaborative and interdisciplinary work and serve to strengthen the faculty’s research output.

While BIRTHA will work with the Arts Faculty Research Support Group, it is an independent body, not part of the University committee structure, and its policy will be determined by the Executive Committee with appropriate advice from the External Board.

Professor Charles Martindale, Director of BIRTHA, said: ‘BIRTHA hopes to build on the faculty’s successes, increase its international reputation, explore current research frontiers and open new ones.’

The 14 departments within the Faculty of Arts are: Archaeology and Anthropology; Classics; Drama: Theatre, Film, Television; English; French; German; Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies; Historical Studies; History of Art; Italian; Music; Philosophy; Russian and Theology and Religious Studies.

The Faculty of Arts has a number of existing centres and institutes, which provide a focus for collaborative and interdisciplinary work. 

The centres and institutes are: Centre for Buddhist Studies; Centre for Christianity and Culture; Centre for East Asian Studies; Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition; Centre for the Literary and Visual Cultures of 19th Century France; Centre for Medieval Studies; Centre for Romantic Studies; and the Centre for Russian and East European Cultural Studies.

In part of the University Research Plan, the faculty has chosen a number of faculty themes, which will be developed as one of its research priorities over the next five years.