Dr Gwilym Ap Gruffudd

B.Th, PGCET, M.A. Social Research and Social Policy, PhD

Gwilym has close to two decades of experience in higher education teaching and applied social research in Wales. His career began in frontline practice. He worked as a Probation Service Officer, as a youth justice Referral Order Coordinator, and with children and young people with learning and physical disabilities. That experience still shapes his commitment to research that makes a practical difference to marginalised learners, families and communities.

Before joining Aberystwyth, Gwilym was a Lecturer and Research Fellow in Education and Human Development at Bangor University for many years. He was also seconded to the Welsh Government as Senior Research Officer (Education and Schools), and has held honorary teaching and research posts at Cardiff University and Wrexham University. Since 2016 he has worked as an independent researcher and has contributed to evaluations and reviews for:

• the Welsh Government
• the Children's Commissioner for Wales
• Llais
• Natural Resources Wales
• the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol
• the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales
• Mind Cymru
• Barnardo's Cymru

Gwilym completed his PhD at Bangor University, examining educational and social inequalities affecting learners in rural Wales. He also holds an MA in Social Research and Social Policy (Bangor), a PGCE in post-compulsory education (University of Wales, Newport), a BTh (Aberystwyth), and the Tystysgrif Sgiliau Iaith with Distinction. He is a fluent Welsh speaker and researches, teaches and supervises through the medium of Welsh and English.

Gwilym's research interest’s centres on poverty, disadvantage and educational attainment, particularly in rural and Welsh-medium contexts. His wider interests include:

• inclusion and additional learning needs
• children and young people's mental health and wellbeing
• learner voice and children's rights
• educational transitions
• curriculum, assessment and mixed-attainment teaching under the Curriculum for Wales
• professional enquiry
• Welsh language education and bilingualism since devolution

He also works on health, social care and community evaluation, including Welsh-language access to services. His work mainly uses qualitative and mixed methods, and he has led projects from design through to dissemination. As Principal or Co-Investigator, he has secured more than £900,000 in research funding.

Gwilym's research impact has directly shaped policy and practice in Wales. His REAP study (Re-thinking Educational Attainment and Poverty in Rural Wales, 2017), which he led as Principal Investigator, was cited as part of the evidence base for the Welsh Government's first Rural Education Action Plan (2018) securing more than more than £90 million of Welsh Government funding for schools to support disadvantaged learners.

He was also a key stakeholder contributor to the OECD's 2020 review Achieving the New Curriculum for Wales, and a co-applicant on the Children's Commissioner for Wales review Building Blocks: Inclusion in the Foundation Phase.

Gwilym has led and taught modules across undergraduate, master's and doctoral programmes, including:

• the National Master's in Education (Wales)
• the Ed.D
• early childhood studies /childhood and youth studies

His teaching specialisms are research methods, language development, children's rights, behaviour management and adult learning theories. He has taught internationally at the Management Development Institute of Singapore. He has supervised master's and doctoral research and served as an external examiner at the University of Chester.