The website is primarily a resource for research about and interest in the life and work of the 18th-century Italian navigator and writer who, as an officer of the Spanish Navy, led a five-year scientific and political expedition to the Pacific. The Alexandro Malaspina Research Centre, affiliated with the Liberal Studies Department, is dedicated to conducting, and developing English-language resources for the promotion of, interdisciplinary research into navigation in the 18th century, first contact between indigenous and European people on the Pacific coasts of the Americas, and the history of humanistic thought since the eighteenth century. The Centre supports international collaboration between scholars and enthusiasts with like interests. It is also the home of the undergraduate journal The Compass Rose.