Centre for Deaf Studies, Bristol

The Centre for Deaf Studies was a department of the University of Bristol, England, in the field of deaf studies, which it defines as the study of the "language, community and culture of Deaf people". Established in 1978, the Centre claimed to be the first higher educational Institute in Europe "to concentrate solely on research and education that aims to benefit the Deaf community". The Centre was at the forefront in establishing the disciplines of deaf studies and deafhood. It used British Sign Language (BSL), had a policy of bilingual communication in BSL and English, and employed a majority of deaf teaching staff.

The Centre offered Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Master of Science (MSc) courses, as well as research degrees at MPhil and PhD level. Bristol University announced plans to close the BSc course in May 2010 after a failed campaign by the centre's supporters and staff. By 2013 the Centre was being gradually shut down by the University, by means of a program of redundancies and staff attrition.

The Centre was founded in 1978. Early research into the acquisition and usage of BSL was the first funded research into the topic in the UK. In 1980, the Centre produced the first coding manual for BSL, followed by the first textbook on the language in 1985. In 1980, the Centre ran the first National Conference on Sign Language in the UK, and the following year it hosted the first International Conference on Sign Language to be held in the UK. It also organised the first International Deaf Researchers Workshop in 1985.

In 1984, the Centre coined the term "deaf studies", and in 2001, it established the first professorship in the discipline. Also in 2001, it employed a deaf director, the first time that the head of a European academic Centre had been deaf. In 2003, the book Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, by the Centre's researcher Paddy Ladd, popularised the term "deafhood", which Ladd had coined in 1990.

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