The Centre was established by Dr Mina Gorji, Professor Sarah Houghton-Walker and Dr Paul Chirico and is co-directed by Dr Mina Gorji, Professor Sarah Houghton-Walker and Dr Erin Lafford.

Past activities have included symposia on 'Clare and Song' with music from the Black Smock Band playing the folk-tunes Clare transcribed held at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharpe House; ‘Clare, Botany and Classification in the Early Nineteenth Century’, in the Cambridge Botanic Garden;  'Clare and the art of Birdwatching' organised with Jon Fanshaw from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and 'Clare and the Fens' hosted by the John Clare Cottage in Helpston. 

Other projects have included a collaboration with Peterborough Archives and Vivacity to curate a major exhibition based on Clare’s manuscripts, held in Peterborough Museum, a collaboration with five artists in UnEarthed: John Clare, exhibited at Clare Cottage and subsequently at Northampton and Peterborough Museums, poetry readings by David Morley, and Hazel Press poets Ella Duffy and Anna Selby, an online reading and celebration of The Village Minstrel organised by Erin Lafford and, with Pembroke college, a discussion with novelist Ian Sinclair.

In 2020, we edited a special issue of Romanticism to mark the bicentenary of the publication of Clare's first volume, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery,

We enjoy speaking to a wider public about Clare, at festivals and in the media: radio broadcasts include "In Our Time" and "John Clare's Scraping" on BBC radio 4.