Earlier this month Cardiff University announced they are conferring an honorary title upon Gwyther Rees. Gwyther is an internationally renowned expert on children’s subjective wellbeing, he has been researching children’s wellbeing in the UK and internationally for nearly thirty years.
Gwyther has considerable experience of working in the third sector with various organisations such as the Children’s Society and UNICEF. He recently completed an ESRC-funded doctoral thesis at Cardiff University on children’s subjective wellbeing.
Gwyther’s professional history is highly impressive, amongst his many roles he has been a Research Director at The Children’s Society a national children’s charity in England, between 1990 and 2013. In this role he specialised in research on young runaways, adolescent maltreatment and children’s subjective wellbeing. A number of these research projects where carried out in partnership with the University of York.
He has also been the Research Director of the highly successful Children’s Worlds study. This study is an international survey of children’s subjective well-being, this is the largest and most robust internationally comparative study of children. Currently Gwyther is a consultant at UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti where he is contributing to work on a Report Card on educational inequalities in rich countries.
Between 2014 – 2017 Gwyther undertook an ESRC-funded PhD in the Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, it was t was during this time he developed valuable links with researchers at Cardiff University and particularly those working at WISERD.
Gwyther’s expertise and research interests meet three of WISERD’s research priorities. Firstly, our ESRC WISERD Civil Society Centre is interested in understanding better the importance of civil society, particularly exclusion from civil society. WISERD’s interest in the role of third sector organisations and finally our interest in children’s rights and voices within civil society. Secondly, WISERD Education is interested in children’s and young people’s experiences, attitudes and behaviours, particularly those in Wales. Thirdly, WISERD has developed considerable expertise and interest in life course, whether that be through childhood and adolescence, participation in education through the life course, or the role of family in the intergenerational transmission of attitudes and behaviours.
WISERD is excited to be working together with Gwyther, his interest expertise and research connections could be invaluable in supporting us in our work.