University college was instrumental in the university's founding. The foundation of the university college in
Cardiff that was to become Cardiff University was part of the Welsh university movement of the second half of the 19th century, which also led to the foundation of the colleges at Aberystwyth and Bangor (now
Aberystwyth and
Bangor universities) and the federal
University of Wales. The movement began at a meeting in London in 1854 called by
Hugh Owen, including leaders of Welsh theological colleges and members of parliament. This meeting discussed establishing university colleges in Wales along the same lines as the
Queen's Colleges established the previous decade in
Ireland, and produced a formal proposal, the "Outline of Constitution for Proposed Welsh Queen's Colleges". Discussions on the founding of a university college in
South Wales were revived in 1879, when a group of Welsh and English
MPs urged the government to consider the poor provision of higher and intermediate
education in Wales and "the best means of assisting any local effort which may be made for supplying such deficiency." In August 1880,
William Ewart Gladstone's government appointed a departmental committee to conduct "an enquiry into the nature and extent of intermediate and higher education in Wales", chaired by
the 1st Baron Aberdare and consisting of
Viscount Emlyn, the Reverend Prebendary H. G. Robinson,
Henry Richard,
John Rhys and
Lewis Morris. The
Aberdare Report, as it came to be known, took evidence from a wide range of sources and over 250 witnesses and recommended a college each for North Wales and South Wales, the latter to be located in
Glamorgan and the former to be the established University College of Wales in Aberystwyth (now
Aberystwyth University). The committee cited the unique Welsh national identity and noted that many students in Wales could not afford to travel to University in England or Scotland. It advocated a national degree-awarding university for Wales, composed of regional colleges, which should be non-sectarian in nature and exclude the teaching of theology. After the recommendation was published,
Cardiff Corporation sought to secure the location of the college in Cardiff, and on 12 December 1881 formed a University College Committee to aid the matter. There was competition to be the site between
Swansea and Cardiff. On 12 March 1883, after arbitration, a decision was made in Cardiff's favour. In April, Lord Aberdare was appointed as the college's first president. In 1888 the university college at Cardiff and the University College of North Wales (now
Bangor University) proposed to the University College Wales at Aberystwyth joint action to gain a university charter for Wales, modelled on that of the
Victoria University, a federal university in northern England with colleges in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. This led to a charter being granted to the
University of Wales in 1893, with the colleges becoming members of the new university. The position of operational head would rotate among heads of the colleges. Soon after, in 1905, work on a new building commenced under the architect
W. D. Caröe. Money ran short for the project, however, and although the side-wings were completed in the 1960s the planned great hall was never built. Caroe sought to combine the charm and elegance of his
alma mater (
Trinity College, Cambridge) with the picturesque balance of many
Oxford colleges. On 14 October 1909 the "New College" building in Cathays Park (now Main Building) and the "Drapers' Library" (now the Science Library) was opened in a ceremony involving a procession from the "Old College" in Newport Road. In 1931, the medical school, founded as part of the college in 1893 along with the departments of anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology, was split off to form the Welsh National School of Medicine, renamed the
University of Wales College of Medicine in 1984. The University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire was renamed University College, Cardiff in 1972.
1988 merger In 1988, University College Cardiff ran into financial difficulties and a declaration of insolvency was considered. This led to a merger with the
University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST) to form the University of Wales College of Cardiff. The principal of the new institution was
Sir Aubrey Trotman-Dickenson, who had been the principal of UWIST. After changes to the constitution in 1996, its name was changed to the University of Wales, Cardiff. In the early 1990s, the university's computer systems served as the home for
The Internet Movie Database.
Independence and 2004 merger The college was granted degree-awarding powers by the
Privy Council in 1997 although, as a member of the University of Wales, it did not use them at that time. In 1999, the
public name of the university was changed to Cardiff University. In 2002, ideas were floated to re-merge Cardiff with the
University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM), after the publication of the
Welsh Assembly Government's review of higher education in Wales. This set in train a series of constitutional reforms. On 1 August 2004, Cardiff University ceased to be a member of the University of Wales and became an independent "link institution" affiliated to the federal university. The process of the merger with UWCM was completed on 1 December 2004, when the
Act of Parliament transferring UWCM's assets to Cardiff University received royal assent. On 17 December it was announced that the
Privy Council had given approval to a new supplemental charter for the keys institution. This was sealed on 11 March 2005, granting university status to Cardiff and legally changing the name of the institution to Cardiff University. Cardiff awarded University of Wales degrees to students admitted before 2005, but has subsequently awarded its own degrees. In 2005, Wales College of Medicine, as part of the university, launched the North Wales Clinical School in
Wrexham, in collaboration with the
North East Wales Institute of Higher Education in Wrexham, the
University of Wales, Bangor, and the
National Health Service in Wales. This received funds of £12.5 million from the
Welsh Assembly and trebled the number of trainee doctors in clinical training in Wales over a four-year period. The university also has a Centre for
Lifelong Learning, which has been teaching a wide range of courses for over 125 years. However, in July 2009, the university announced it was ending over 250 humanities courses at the centre, making over 100 staff redundant. The university has since reintroduced a number of humanities courses for a trial period beginning in 2010. In June 2010, the university launched three new research institutes, each offering a new approach to a major modern research issue. The Neurosciences and Mental Health Research Institute and the Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute are housed in the purpose-built
Hadyn Ellis Building and in the Sustainable Places Research Institute. Another part of the Science and Development Campus, the
Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), opened in June 2016 for
neuroimaging research.
Workload controversy On 19 February 2018, Malcolm Anderson, a university lecturer committed
suicide at age 48 by jumping off a university building. The inquiry determined that Anderson's suicide was the result of a high-pressure workload. She
tweeted that "Staff are marking hundreds of essays in an impossibly short time. It is exhausting. Everyone is in crisis mode. Stressed, moody, morose, everyone feels like they’re drowning." The Arts and Humanities are expected to suffer most severely, with the remaining workforce to be reduced by approximately 120 full-time equivalent positions, which is around half. The university had around £500 million in unrestricted reserves according to its accounts for 2023–24, which the
Universities and Colleges Union said should be partially used to give a longer period for the university's finances to recover. However, the university said that "unrestricted reserves" was not the same as cash available to spend. The university's accounts contain the statement that "Of the University’s £426m of cash and investments as at 31 July 2024, £41m is freely available to spend." A document circulated internally but leaked to the press revealed that further job losses in non-academic staff were expected on top of the 400 academic staff posts and outlined plans for a smaller but higher-quality student intake in future. It also revealed that the projected deficit for 2024–25, if no action was taken, was £65 million, double the deficit for 2023–24, with the cuts designed to reduce the deficit to £28 million. In May, the university announced that it would reduce the impact of its cuts by continuing to offer some courses that were previously due to be cancelled, including Nursing, Music, and Modern Languages. The university also agreed to not make any compulsory redundancies in 2025, following a deal with the UCU to drop plans industrial action in the summer. The university's deficit is part of the wider financial challenges in the UK higher education sector, where universities are facing budget deficits due to factors such as tuition fee caps, rising operational costs, and fluctuations in student enrolment. Other institutions, have also announced staff reductions and course closures. The proposed cuts at Cardiff also led to protests at the
Senedd, where the
Welsh Government said that there was no more money available for higher education despite universities across Wales suffering financial crises and implementing job cuts and campus closures.
Vice chancellors and principals List of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of Cardiff University and its predecessors (shown in brackets): • 1883–1901 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
John Viriamu Jones • 1901–1918 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
Ernest Howard Griffiths • 1918–1929 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
Albert Howard Trow • 1929–1949 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
Frederick Rees • 1949–1966 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
Anthony Steel • 1966–1972 (University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire):
C. W. L. Bevan • 1972–1987 (University College Cardiff):
C. W. L. Bevan • 1968–1988 (University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology):
Sir Aubrey Trotman-Dickenson • 1988–1993:
Aubrey Trotman-Dickenson • 1993–2001:
Brian Smith • 2001–2012:
David Grant • 2012–2023:
Colin Riordan • 2023–present:
Wendy Larner ==Campus==