Gwerddon: gwyrddlasu anialdir? Rhai sylwadau ar hanes e-gyfnodolyn academaidd Cymraeg (Gwerddon: Greening a desert? Some comments on the history of a Welsh-language e-periodical)

The article considers the history of Gwerddon, a multi-disciplinary research e-journal launched in April 2007, which has to date (January 2019) published more than one hundred original articles. Its origins lie in the growth of Welsh-language teaching in Welsh universities in the 1970s and 1980s, the campaign to establish a Welsh-language federal college at a time when the federal University of Wales was in crisis, and the urgent need for Welsh-language scholarship to be equally represented in the research assessment exercises of the RAE/REF. The study considers the journal’s impact factors and its role in the development of a Welsh presence on the burgeoning web of the early twenty-first century, and argues that its continuation rests both on Welsh Government educational policy in general, and the financial resilience of the Higher Education sector at a time of severe challenges.

This is the hundredth article to appear in Gwerddon since the first issue was published in 2007. The Editorial Board would like to thank Professor Aled Gruffydd Jones for researching the journal's history and writing this article to mark the occasion.