Wales Centre for Resilience and Harmony

There will be specific emphasis on introducing resilience to the areas of community and community wellbeing, food and agriculture, buildings and retrofitting, energy and energy use.

As a vital part of this, continuous attention will be paid to the way in which the town and the region can practically support the principles of the Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations Act.

The centre will also have an important function in advising the University on how to deliver its academic provision through a sustainability lens and will also be active in providing accredited training on resilience for all of the institution’s trainee teachers.

The centre will  be considered an innovative entity as it offers training and guidance on more resilient, harmonious and sustainable ways of living and working.

The core module – Resilient by Design – will be at the heart of the broad curriculum provided with a clear focus on regenerative food systems, horticulture and agriculture, food production, community resilience, energy and energy use.  

The centre will be housed in the refurbished Willows building on the University’s campus, where staff and students will have the use of seminar rooms, a small library, meeting rooms, offices and a lounge.  

This Centre has been developed as a result of a close working partnership between the University, Lampeter Resilience Hub, the Harmony Institute and Coleg Ceredigion/ Coleg Sir Gâr.

The Centre opened with a launch event on Friday 19^th November 2021.

Launch of the Centre

The association of the vision of the University with the rural environment established by its early founders has remained to today. The founder of Saint David’s College Lampeter, Bishop Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Saint David’s and also Bishop of Salisbury, was a founding member of the Odiham Agricultural Society in his English seat.  He had a great empathy for the rural environment, intense interest and intimate understanding of agriculture and the importance of agricultural reform, as well as the importance of it to the community. At Lampeter, Bishop Burgess had tremendous regard for the Welsh language and culture and deepening vocational learning and knowledge for all.  We are nurtured by this history in our responses to today’s challenges, The same values are at the heart of the centre’s mission in addressing the climate crisis and other societal challenges, and these values are very much shared by the members of the centre.  

Following the launch of the Wales Centre for Resilience and Harmony, the Canolfan Tir Glas project was officially launched on Thursday 17th March 2022. This was followed by an Open Day on Saturday 19th March 2022 with a programme of activities focused on the theme ‘Learning from Nature’. This event included contributions from academics, local experts in food and farming, students, local enterprises and social enterprises, in the form of a range of keynote talks, shorter talks, exhibitions, practical indoor and outdoor activities including guided walks around the campus and the town. The activities focused on the theme of resilience, including education, wellbeing, biodiversity and restoring nature.

The Open Day was an  opportunity for the public to engage with the University and to contribute to discussions and activities around resilience at the beginning of an exciting new era for the University at Lampeter and for the community it serves.