Bangor University is a leading research-led University with an international reputation for teaching and research, that fosters the intellectual and personal development of its students and staff, provides a supportive multicultural environment, promotes widening access and inclusiveness, and supports the economic, social and cultural well-being of Wales and the wider community it serves. Bangor University is recognised regionally, nationally and internationally as a centre of excellence for a varied portfolio of academic programmes and for the high quality of the experience it provides for its students and staff.

Bangor is located in a breathtaking landscape with panoramic views and is rich with history, culture and charm. The city is home to over 13,500 people and approximately half of these are first language Welsh speakers, so Bangor is truly a bilingual community. At the heart of the city is the ancient St Deiniol’s Cathedral, one of the oldest cathedral sites in Britain. The Cathedral was founded in 525AD some 70 years before Canterbury. The University plays an important part in the city’s history and identity. It was built in 1884 following funding by local quarrymen who volunteered to give some of their wages towards providing a better standard of higher education. There are over 10,000 students from 26 European union and 85 other countries worldwide studying at the University. Bangor’s coastal location means it has impressive views and is connected to the Isle of Anglesey by two picturesque bridges- the Menai Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Bridge.

Bangor University’s new arts and innovation centre Pontio (which means “to bridge” in Welsh) will open its doors in 2014. Home to a mid-scale theatre, a studio theatre, a cinema, design and innovation centre, Students Union, spacious lecture theatres, social learning spaces, bar, café and more – this new building will reinvigorate the city centre. The main theatre will boast a flexible auditorium with the ability to transform the venue. From a 450-seat traditional proscenium-arch theatre experience, to theatre-in-the-round, to standing only gigs for 700+, this will be the first space of its kind in north west Wales.

The studio theatre will seat 120 for more intimate events as well as being an ideal venue for community-based activities and student societies, and the much anticipated 200-seat cinema will be supported by state-of-the-art facilities. The design studio will boost the University’s cross-disciplinary teaching programmes and encourage collaborative work between students, staff and local businesses. Throughout the Centre, new teaching and social learning spaces will be created to support a modern educational environment, along with digital showcase facilities to enable the display of work using the latest in digital technology.

Pontio
Bangor University
Deiniol Road
Bangor, LL57 2DG
United Kingdom

Jonathon Porritt

Sir Jonathon Porritt, Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. Established in 1996, Forum for the Future is now the UK’s leading sustainable development charity, with 70 staff and over 100 partner organisations including some of the world’s leading companies. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Willmott Dixon Holdings. He is a Trustee of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, and is involved in the work of many NGOs and charities as Patron, Chair or Special Adviser, see Affiliations. He was formerly Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90); co-chair of the Green Party (1980-83) of which he is still a member; chairman of UNED-UK (1993-96); chairman of Sustainability South West, the South West Round Table for Sustainable Development (1999-2001); a Trustee of WWF UK (1991-2005), a member of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency (1999-2008). He stood down as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in July 2009 after nine years of providing high-level advice to Government Ministers. Jonathon was installed as the Chancellor of Keele University in February 2012. His new book, The World We Made, was published in October 2013. His recent books are Capitalism As If The World Matters (Earthscan, revised 2007), Globalism & Regionalism (Black Dog 2008) and Living Within Our Means (Forum for the Future 2009). Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.

David Snowden

Founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge. His work is international in nature and covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy, organisational decision making and decision making. He has pioneered a science based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of subjects, and is well known for his pragmatic cynicism and iconoclastic style. He holds visiting Chairs at the Universities of Pretoria and Hong Kong Polytechnic University as well as a visiting fellowship at the University of Warwick. He is a senior fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at Nanyang University and the Civil Service College in Singapore. His paper with Boone on Leadership was the cover article for the Harvard Business Review in November 2007 and also won the Academy of Management aware for the best practitioner paper in the same year. He has previously won a special award from the Academy for originality in his work on knowledge managment. He is a editorial board member of several academic and practitioner journals in the field of knowledge management and is an Editor in Chief of E:CO. In 2006 he was Director of the EPSRC (UK) research programme on emergence and in 2007 was appointed to an NSF (US) review panel on complexity science research. He previously worked for IBM where he was a Director of the Institution for Knowledge Management and founded the Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity; during that period he was selected by IBM as one of six “on-demand” thinkers for a world wide advertising campaign. Prior to that he worked in a range of strategic and management roles in the service sector.

Gwilym Morus

Dr Gwilym Morus began his studies in Welsh medieval literature in 2002 as a mature student enrolled on the Welsh literature degree course at The School of Welsh, Bangor University. He then went on to complete a Masters and a Doctorate at the department, specialising in Medieval Welsh poetry and the Welsh bardic tradition. For his doctorate he investigated the dramatic persona of the court bard and anthropological aspects of the Welsh bardic tradition, particularly during the Gogynfeirdd period. He has also worked as a research fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, comparing the performance practices of African and American tribal cultures with those of the medieval Welsh bards. In 2010 he received a grant from the Welsh Arts Council to develop a research project on the performance styles and techniques of medieval bardic declamation. The project performed at Bangor University’s Voicing the Verse conference in May of that year. Details and videos of performances can be found at his website: http://www.caneuon.com/datgeiniaeth. gwilym at gaza2 gig2Although spending much of his time researching and studying his native bardic tradition he has also been a practicing musician and performer since his early teens, composing largely through the medium of Welsh, and is a well regarded figure on the Welsh music scene. Since 2005 he has released several albums of original material, and he was lead singer and percussionist for a twelve piece afro-beat outfit called Drymbago who released two albums and played at several festivals and venues. He has also been responsible for international collaborations with musicians from Palestine. His music is available at http://www.caneuon.com, where there are also videos of live performances. In 2012, along with other prominent members of the Welsh music industry he founded Eos – The Broadcasting Rights Agency for Wales. He is currently one of the new agency’s directors, as well as being chairman of the agency board.

John Idris Jones

John is the socio-economic development manager for Magnox in Wales and is seconded to the Isle of Anglesey County Council as the Energy Island Programme Director. A chartered physicist, with over 30 years experience in the energy and environment sector – covering senior management roles at Wylfa in safety, engineering, maintenance and project management, he is also Chair of the Snowdonia Enterprise Zone and the chair of the Wales Steering Group of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear. He is a member of the Welsh Government’s Energy and Environment Sector industry advisory panel. He recently worked on a knowledge transfer partnership with Bangor University on sustainable development – promoting the broadening of the local supply chain and encouraging the development of engineering and science skills amongst young people.

Hasib Muhammad

Hasib Muhammad is an advocate for youth voice. He believes that all young people have a voice to be heard. From a trip overseas to Bangladesh, he has seen the effects of youth voice suppression firsthand, and he does not want that to happen in the United States. He is the Program Director of Greening Forward, an environmental non-profit organization that focuses on empowering young people to impact the environment positively. In his spare time, Hasib enjoys writing about youth empowerment. His work has been published in The Huffington Post and other outlets. He is also an avid public speaker and has presented at TEDxYouth@TheBeltline. Hasib lives with his family in Suwanee, Georgia. He is always looking for more speaking and writing opportunities!

Joe Reddington

Dr Joe Reddington is dedicated to leveling the playing field. As the principal of White Water Writers, a project that trains teachers and youth leaders to run inspiration literacy camps, he dreams of a world where every child can hold in their hands a book they have written. As a big brother to a severely disabled sibling, he researches ethical issues around power and control in the context of communication disability, produces open datasets for assistive technology provision, and campaigns to eliminate postcode lotteries for vital equipment. He blogs on creativity, disability, and technology issues three times a week.

Martin Daws

We have one of the world’s greatest poetic traditions in Wales, so to be named Young People’s Laureate for Wales is one of the greatest honours a poet can receive. I am very pleased to be given the role, and relish the opportunity to celebrate our poetic traditions in the best way I know how – by nurturing the next generation of young Welsh poets. Its my belief that there is a poem for everyone, and a poem in everyone, and as Young People’s Laureate for Wales I’m excited to offer every young person in Wales an opportunity to find those poems. I want to create a dynamic poetic culture that fosters both excellence in a young person with talent, and engagement in a young person who thinks poetry is boring; a socially relevant culture that understands how the work of both those young people is of equal worth; I want to see a vibrant poetic culture that views the written and spoken word as inseperable reflections of the same source and seeks to make them one; a living poetic culture that can both celebrate tradition and engage with linguistic innovation to safeguard the passage of poetry into the future. As babies we begin the process of understanding our world through the stories we tell ourselves in the present, as we get older much of our story becomes phrased in the past. Young people stand between those tenses and hold a vital potential to contribute coherence to the narrative of the nation as a whole. My role is to first help them believe in the story they have to tell, and then to help them find the words they need to tell it.

John Parkinson

John Parkinson is the current Head of School in Psychology at Bangor University and is a Reader in Positive Psychology. His research focuses on the neuroscience of motivation as well as the role of motivation in behaviour and in behaviour change. He is a founder of the Wales Centre for Behaviour Change a joint project of the Wales European Funding Office and Bangor University. A primary remit of the Centre is to promote innovation, economic activity and regeneration in convergence regions of Wales using behavioural science. John also acts to facilitate interdisciplinary research at Bangor University promoting communication, collaboration and engagement both within and without the University. The School of Psychology in Bangor is one of the largest in the UK and regularly scores amongst the highest in measures of teaching quality and research excellence.