Histories of Wales-Asia project awarded prestigious grant
12 January 2026
A Cardiff University Wales-Asia project has received a grant from Wales’ revered National Academy.
The Learned Society of Wales has awarded “Histories of Wales-Asia Connections: New Sources and Perspectives” funding for a one-day workshop at Cardiff University, aiming to shed light on primary sources on Wales-Asia interactions held in Welsh institutions to inspire future research.
The workshop will gather scholars, students, librarians and community members to focus on overlooked histories of Wales-Asia connections in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
It will also celebrate personal and family collections as invaluable historical sources to understand the histories of Wales-Asia connections in the 19th and 20th centuries and their impact on the present.
Project lead Dr Helena Lopes said:
I am delighted and honoured to have received funding from the Learned Society of Wales. We hope to increase recognition of the rich collections on Welsh in Asia, and Asia, held in Wales and the diversity of Welsh family histories with connections to Asia.
“We’re also aiming to use the workshop as a springboard for one or more larger research projects on histories of Wales-Asia connections.”
Presentations will cover case studies of Wales’s connections to different parts of Asia, as well as Asian communities in Wales, a country that is home to some of the oldest British Asian communities in the United Kingdom.
This successful grant application springs from a previous research collaboration between Dr Lopes, Dr Yi Li (Aberystwyth University) and Dr Thomas Jansen (University of Wales, Trinity Saint David).
In 2023 they received funding from the Wales Innovation Network and Global Wales Small Grant Scheme for a project entitled “St. David in the East: Welsh Communities in East and Southeast Asia in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”.
The project has since expanded, as the team came to interact with scholars and doctoral students in various disciplines, both in the UK and overseas, interested in different dimensions of Wales-Asia connections.
The inaugural trio is joining forces again to organise this workshop, this time in partnership with Cardiff University Special Collections.
Dr Lopes added, “In parallel to this workshop, I’m also developing a project with Dr Lui Tam (ARCHI), Dr Aled Singleton (GEOPL), and award-winning cinematographer Keefa Chan on histories and spaces of Chinese restaurants in South Wales, funded by the Welsh Crucible.
"I would like to thank all colleagues involved in both projects, the Cardiff Special Collections, and the SHARE Research Team for their contributions in putting together these applications and, of course, I thank the Learned Society of Wales and the Welsh Crucible for their generosity in supporting our research on overlooked histories of Wales-Asia interactions".
Find out more about Histories of Wales-Asia and history research at Cardiff University.
