| Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1970 |
| Type | Public |
| Director | Philip Payton |
| Location | Falmouth, Cornwall, UK |
| Campus | University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus |
| Colors | Gold |
| Website | www.uec.ac.uk/ics |
The Institute of Cornish Studies (ICS) is a research institute in west Cornwall: it started in 1970/71 as a research centre jointly funded by Exeter University and Cornwall County Council, with three core staff being employees of the University of Exeter.[1] Formerly at Pool, near Redruth, then in Truro, it is now on the Tremough Campus at Penryn and is still affiliated with the University of Exeter.
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The ICS’s first home was in the heart of the Central Mining District at Pool, halfway between Camborne and Redruth. The Institute was housed at Trevenson House and later at the Trevithick Building on the Cornwall College campus. Charles Thomas was the first Director and Professor of Cornish Studies. He led a small team of Oliver Padel and Myrna Combellack and their work focused on archaeology, place names and the Cornish medieval dramas. In 1991, Professor Thomas retired, his departure following the move of Oliver Padel to Cambridge University. In the early 1990s both Myrna Combellack and the Cornish Biological Records Unit also left the Institute.
The new Director from 1991 was Philip Payton who set out to shift the focus of the ICS’s work away from archaeology, medieval history and the natural environment towards more contemporary issues. This change in direction was illustrated by the publication in 1993 of Cornwall Since the War, a collection of essays on modern Cornwall.
In 1994 the ICS moved from Pool to join the University’s Department of Lifelong Learning at its base at Hayne Corfe in Truro. New members of staff Paul Thornton and Amy Hale made their own contributions to the work of the Institute in the 1990s in the field of tourism and cultural studies. The ICS was for a time concerned with moves towards a contemporary Celtic Studies, resulting in a book on the New Celtic Studies, edited by Amy Hale and Philip Payton.
In collaboration with the Department of Lifelong Learning, in 1999, the ICS introduced the first taught higher education programme in Cornish Studies, an innovative flexibly delivered part-time Master’s degree in Cornish Studies (using Internet, post, telephone and face-to-face day schools). In 2000 Garry Tregidga and Bernard Deacon joined the Institute and began to develop new directions in the methodology of Cornish Studies.
The ICS moved yet again October 2004, this time to join the rest of Exeter University’s Cornish ‘outposts’ and the Falmouth College of Arts on their new Combined Universities of Cornwall Campus at Tremough, just outside Penryn and close to the medieval centre of Cornish literary scholarship at Glasney College. At Tremough the ICS is home to two major externally funded research programmes, the Cornwall Audio Visual Archive and the Cornish Communities Programme. It is to benefit from a £10,000,000 package supporting new posts in, amongst other subject areas, Celtic Studies.[2]
The first series of Cornish Studies was published from 1973 to 1988.
It was relaunched in 1993. By 2006 the annual Cornish Studies had reached its thirteenth volume and had included over 150 articles on various aspects of Cornish Studies, written by over 90 separate contributors.[3] It is usually published in December.
The function and the role of the ICS have changed over the years but its commitment to furthering Cornish scholarship has persisted. The ICS intends to play a leading role in the next phase of the Tremough development and this may result in a greater ‘critical mass’ of Cornwall-based social sciences and humanities researchers and the potential for more quality research on Cornwall and its society as well as undergraduate teaching modules in Cornish Studies.
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