Professor Claire Gorrara

(she/her)

Research

Visual Cultures of War

I am interested in the ways popular forms of representation shape how contemporary viewers and readers understand legacies of the Second World War. I am currently working on projects that focus on visual representations of war in anglophone and francophone cultures. This work interrogates the intergenerational transmission of war memory in 21st century comics, graphic novels and picture books. It asks how text-image narratives allow for the creative archiving of wartime pasts that are now moving beyond the realm of living memory as the last surviving witnesses pass away.

Language Learning and Advocacy

I am the Academic Lead for the MFL Mentoring project, a pan-Wales project that uses mentoring to enthuse secondary schools students to study modern/international languages and, thereby, to increase the take up of languages in compulsory education. The programme trains university students to be multilingual champions to school students who are disengaged from learning languages. This project is funded by the Welsh Government and is delivered in partnership with the Universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff Metropolitan, University of South Wales, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Wrexham Glyndwr, Swansea, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in collaboration with the Welsh educational consortia. This project promotes the benefits of intercultural communication and supports aspirations towards university study for more disadvantaged groups: https://mflmentoring.co.uk/

I lead research from this project that examines why secondary school students in Wales are choosing not to study languages at school and the impact that this is having on the languages landscape and curriculum design in Wales. This research draws on large-scale data generated by the MFL Mentoring project, a programme which works with over 120 secondary schools in Wales annually. 

The project was was shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Awards in 2021 in the category of Widening Participation or School Outreach project of the year.

My work on languages and mentoring has generated

• public engagement pieces for The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/how-mentoring-can-improve-modern-languages-uptake-in-schools-65380;
• blog posts as part of language advocacy and activism within academia: https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2021/12/07/we-have-to-deploy-modern-languages-in-confronting-our-challenges/
• opinion pieces and consultancy for language projects for the British Council Wales: https://wales.britishcouncil.org/en/blog/languages-multilingualism
• consultancy work with the British Academy on SHAPE (Social Sciences, Arts and the Humanities for People and the Economy): https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/article/humanities-and-the-arts-pioneering-shape-in-school-a-human-world-focus/166477/  

I regularly speak and present at briefings and policy events devoted to teaching/learning languages in Wales, the UK and globally. 

My work on language learning, mentoring and education has secured large-scale funding from the Welsh Government, the Department for Education in England, UKRI (ESRC and AHRC) and the British Council Wales. It has generated international collaborations with the Castille de Leon region in Spain and, most recently the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Research from this project is informing an educational consultancy spin-out company due to laumch in 2025: https://poblcommunications.com/

Teaching

My teaching responsibilities for 2023-4 are:

_{Undergraduate}

First Year: National and Global Perspectives on France

Final Year French Dissertations: French film cultures

Postgraduate Research

Biography

I am currently Dean of Research and Innovation for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cardiff University.

I studied for my undergraduate degree at the University of Leeds. I completed a Masters in European Literature in 1991 and a DPhil on French women's writing and the Second World War in 1994, both at Oxford University

After teaching in France, I was appointed a Lecturer in French at Cardiff University where I was made a Professor of French in 2008.

I was the founding Head of the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University in 2014.

I was the first Dean of Research Environment and Culture at Cardiff University (2019-2021).

Honours and awards

2023: Chevalier dans l'Ordre Nationale du Merite, awarded by the French Government for services to French language and culture and the promotion of multilingualism

2021: Academic Lead of the MFL Mentoring project, shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Award for Widening Participation or School Outreach project of the year

2018 (April): Visiting Research Fellow, KU Leuven

2017: Academic Lead for the MFL Student Mentoring Project, winner of the Chartered Institute of Linguists Threlford Cup http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/997055-threlford-cup

2017 (April): Visiting Research Fellow, KU Leuven

2015: Cardiff University, Celebrating Excellence Awards: Outstanding Contribution to Leadership

2012: Elected Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales

2011: Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

2011: Visiting Fellow, Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London

Funding

2025-6: AHRC IAA: Knowledge Exchange, Commercialisation and Translational Research Fund supporting Pobl Communications educational consultancy: £7,000

2024-5: Cardiff University/University of Waikato: £4,840: partnership funding to pilot a languages mentoring project in Hamilton, New Zealand 

2023-5: Welsh Government: £789,785: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: a Mentoring Initiative: Phase VIII and Reading Mentoring Pilot project

2023-28: ESRC IAA (Disciplinary Lead): Impact Accelerator Account (Round 3): £1.25M 

2022-2023: Welsh Government: £298,000: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative: Phase VII

2022: ESRC IAA (PI and institutional lead): Local Acceleration Fund (LAF): £49,984 

2021-23: ESRC IAA (PI and institutional lead): Commercialising Research out of Social Sciences (CRoSS): £100,000

2021-2022: Welsh Government £230,000: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative: Phase VI 

2020-2023: UKRI: Future Leadership Fellows Network Training: £280,000: Cardiff Co-Investigator (Project led by the University of Edinburgh: £2.8M)

2020-21: Welsh Government £230,000: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase V: A Digital Programme

2019-2020: Department for Education, UK: £430,000: Digital Languages Mentoring, further roll out

2018-19: Department for Education, UK: £94,000: Pilot Digital Languages Mentoring project

2019-20: Welsh Government: £180,000: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase IV

2019: AHRC: £1,500: 'Rethinking the Languages Pipeline in the Era of Brexit, Language Acts and World-Making, Open World Research Initiative

2018-2020: HEFCW: Physics and Mentoring in Wales: £8,565: project consultant and advisor

2018-19: Welsh Government: £139,000: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase III

2018: AHRC: £1,500: 'Language Learning Opens Doors to Other Worlds: Memory Acts through Digital Technologies'. Language Acts and World-Making, Open World Research Initiative

2018: Institute of Modern Languages Research: £2,090 (with T. Allbeson): Photography and the Languages of Reconstruction, 1944-49

2018: AHRC: £2,900: 'Evaluating the effectiveness of e-mentoring and a digital languages platform for FLL in Wales', Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS) Open World Research Initiative

2018: Welsh Government: £40,000: Turbo-Tutoring: Supporting Attainment in AS Level French: Phase II

2017-18: Welsh Government: £228,548: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase II

2017: Welsh Government: £40,000: Turbo-Tutoring: Supporting Attainment in AS Level Modern Foreign Languages: Phase 1

2015-16:Welsh Government: £117,305: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase I

2015: Welsh Government: £56,184: Raising the Profile of Modern Foreign Languages: A Mentoring Initiative Phase I

2008: Cardiff Humanities Research Institute (CHRI): £1,680: Cardiff Distinguished Visiting Fellow scheme: to fund the visit of Dr Maurizio Ascari (Bologna University) as part of the Crime Narratives in Context Research Network activities

2007: Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France: £350.00 Conference support: ‘The Lost Decade: the 1950s in European History, Society, Economy and Culture’, Cardiff University, 11-13 July 2007

2007: British Academy small grant fund: £2,292. Research support for the project: ‘Reconstructing France: Popular Culture, Crime Fictions and National Identity, 1946-58’

2002: Cassell Foundation funding: £700 and Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France funding: £200 Conference support: ‘Cultural Intersections: Noir Fiction and Film in France and Italy’ conference at the Institute of Romance Studies, London

2001-2: Leverhulme Research Fellowship: £15,646

Professional memberships

2023-26: Co-Chair, Wales Arts and Humanities Alliance: https://uniswales.ac.uk/our-work/wales-innovation-network/programmes/wales-arts-and-humanities-alliance

2020-22: Chair, Education Working Group for SHAPE campaign (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for the People and the Economy)

2018-2021: Chair, University Council of Modern Languages: https://university-council-modern-languages.org/

2017-18: President of the Association of University Professors and Heads of French: http://www.auphf.ac.uk/

2016-18: Executive Committee member of the Society for French Studies

2015-2017: Executive Committee member of the Association of University Professors and Heads of French

2014-2019: Academic Director of Routes into Language Cymru, pan-Wales advocacy group for modern languages: http://routesintolanguagescymru.co.uk/

2011-2014: University Council of Modern Languages representative for Wales

2007-2014: Peer Review College member of the AHRC

Academic positions

2021-2027: Dean of Research and Innovation, College of Arts, Humanities and Spcial Sciences, Cardiff University 

2019-2021 University Dean of Research Environment and Culture, Cardiff University

2014-16: Founding Head of the School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University

2012-14: Acting Head, then Head of the School of European Languages, Translation and Politics, Cardiff University

2008-2012: Director of Research, School of European Languages, Translation and Politics, Cardiff University

Committees and reviewing

2020-23 and 2023-26: Council Member, Learned Society of Wales

2018-2021: Scrutiny Panel Member, Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Learned Society of Wales

2018-20: External Advisor, School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, Open University

2018-22: Expert Adviser to the National Assembly for Wales within the framework agreement for the provision of research and briefing services in relation to Brexit. Area of expertise: multilingualism, internationalisation and language policies

Supervisions

• Language policy, multilingualism in Wales and globally
• Memory, culture and war in France
• Comics and graphic novels
• Visual cultures of war

Current supervision

Martina Biavati

Research student

Nicola Keller

Research student