RHS News

Allocation of research funding is central to the Society’s work of supporting historians and historical research.

In 2022 the Society awarded £125,000 in funding to historians through open competitions and in one-off programmes, generously assisted by partner organisations and donors.

From February 2023, the Society launches its new range of funding programmes for historians, within and outside Higher Education, and at all career stages.

Further details of our new Research Funding programmes for 2023 are available here.

Funding is now available in the following three categories:

• Postgraduate Research Funding – a range of scholarships, fellowships and grants for those studying for a History Masters degree or PhD
• Early Career Research Funding – a range of grants for historians within 3 years of completing a doctorate in History
• Open Research Funding – grant options for historians further on from PhD completion, or in mid / later career employed in Higher Education or in other sectors aligned to history

In addition, the Society also offers the following annual programmes in 2023:

• Workshop Grants – enabling groups of historians, at any career stage, to come together to discuss projects in detail: introduced in 2022 and running for its second year in 2023
• Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowships – a new scheme to facilitate innovative and creative teaching practice: to be launched in Spring/Summer 2023

Applicants for Royal Historical Society funding must be members of the Society, with several exceptions at Postgraduate level. To find out how to become a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member, please see our Join Us page.

For more on the Society’s funding opportunities in 2023, please visit the Research Funding area of our website. Here you’ll find details of each grant programme arranged according to career stage; which programmes are currently accepting applications; closing dates; and how to apply for a specific grant.

---

HEADER IMAGE: Bowl with a scholar, anon, c.1575-99, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, public domain.

TEXT IMAGE:  The Ladies Bill of Fare, or, a Copious Collection of Beaux, 1795, plate, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

At its latest meeting on 3 February 2023, the RHS Council elected 44 Fellows, 32 Associate Fellows, 40 Members and 41 Postgraduate Members, a total of 157 people newly associated with the Society. We welcome them all.

The majority of the new Fellows hold academic appointments at universities, specialising in a very wide range of fields; but also include museum curators, librarians, heads of learned societies, teachers heritage consultants, and independent researchers and writers. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from seven countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, the UK and United States.

Our latest intake includes a number of historians working outside History departments, in cognate disciplines in higher education (on this occasion, Art History, Library and Literary Studies, Musicology, Philosophy and Theology): a reminder that the Fellowship is open to all whose research provides a scholarly contribution to historical knowledge.

The new Associate Fellows include not only early career historians in higher education but also historians with professional and private research interests drawn from journalism, conservation, libraries and archives, public and community history and the diplomatic service.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals employed in universities, and as civil servants, teachers, librarians and lawyers – together with independent and community historians. Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 27 different universities in the UK, Canada, Italy and the United States. All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

February 2023 sees the admission of our seventh set of Associate Fellows and Postgraduate Members — two membership categories introduced in late 2021. These changes to membership (about which you can read more here) enable more historians to join the fellowship, and facilitate more focused support for RHS members at the start of their careers.

New Fellows and Members are elected at regular intervals through the year. The current application round is open and runs to Monday 10 April 2023, with the next closing date after this being Monday 5 June 2023. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member); benefits of membership; deadlines for applications throughout 2023; and how to apply, are available here.

 

New Fellows, elected February 2023

• Paul Campbell
• Ian Campbell
• Debbie Challis
• Peter Collinge
• Roxana Coman
• Joseph Cronin
• Anthony Crowley
• Ben Dew
• Elena Draghici-Vasilescu
• Jane Draycott
• Noelle Dückmann Gallagher
• Jonathan Durrant
• Laura Eastlake
• Rob Ellis
• Stefan Fisher-Høyrem
• Darren Freebury-Jones
• Jane Freeland
• Alison Garden
• Jamie Gianoutsos
• Benjamin Guyer
• Trevor Herbert
• Laurence Johnson
• Jennifer Keating
• Rachel Kiddey
• Kevin Killeen
• Liam Lewis
• David Magalhães
• Ewen Misha
• Teresa O’Doherty
• Elodie Paillard
• Hugh Pattenden
• David Reagles
• Alexander Rose
• Pamela Scully
• Neil Tarrant
• Misha Teramura
• Alun Thomas
• Gyorgy Toth
• Colin Trodd
• Mark Vickers
• Tim Welch
• Philip Wood
• Eve Worth
• David Worthington

New Associate Fellows, elected February 2023

• Tayo Agunbiade
• Iram Ahmad
• Artemis Alexiou
• Krysten Blackstone
• Nicoletta Bruno
• Eddie Chaloner
• Danielle Claybrook
• Paul Crawford
• Christian Cuthbert
• Clayton Davis
• Scott de Groot
• Nicolo Ferrari
• Iker Itoiz Ciaurriz
• Terry Kilburn
• Michael Leek
• Peter Lythe
• William Mitchell
• Benjamin Morris
• Steve Ngo
• Daniel O’Brien
• Patrick O’Connor
• David Olvera Ayes
• Patrick B. Poland
• Casey Raeside
• Rose Roberto
• Elisabeth Salje
• Petros  Spanou
• Harry Spillane
• Elin Tomos
• Ben Walsh
• Nicola Williams
• Lauren Young

New Members, elected February 2023

• Ernesto Juan Anaya
• Loraine Banner
• Gaverne Bennett
• Eleanor Braithwaite
• Jocelyn Cash
• Felix Cheah
• Oliver Clark
• Colin Coates
• Michela Cocolin
• Patrick Daigneault
• Mark Diamond
• Lindsay Ditkofsky
• Jennifer Ehrlich
• Eghosa Ekhator
• Jack Fairweather
• Mercy Fowler
• Tracey Gaitt
• Kyle Glover
• Tadhg Goodison
• Michael Hardman
• David Harvey
• Jens Hepper
• Samantha Hook
• Rongqi Li
• Nicolaus Martin
• Shelley Murphy
• Martin Pitts
• Edward Pryke
• Carol Quentin-Hicks
• David Rodenko
• John Sharman
• Manish Shrivastava
• Kelly Smith
• Ines Sousa
• Isarum Sriyingyong
• Andrés Urbano
• Susan Ward
• Nick Wood
• Jiarui Wu
• ChitShing Wu

New Postgraduate Members, elected February 2023

• Chloe Atkinson
• Phillip Baranick
• Sam Brady
• Emily Chambers
• Yi-Ying Chao
• Thomas Collins
• Helen Corlett
• David Cowan
• Calum Cunningham
• Shaun Cushley
• Raja Venkata Krishna Dandamudi
• Camilla de Koning
• Lewis Driver
• Howard Francis
• Lavinia Gambini
• Dionysios Giatras
• Hannah Gibbons
• Jasper Heeks
• Nausheen Hoosein
• Rebecca Irvine
• Nigel Jenkins
• Scott Keir
• Graham Kerr
• Emma Marshall
• Kay Rawson
• Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson
• Rosaria Sgueglia
• Pritam Singh
• David Spruce
• Jois Stansfield
• Ben Stemper
• Lily Tekseng
• Sara Tenneson
• Tiéphaine Thomason
• Katharine Waldron
• Nathan Websdale
• Rowan Whitcomb
• Eleanor Whitehead
• Tadeusz Wojtych
• Tsz Ho Wong
• Emma Wordsworth

---

HEADER IMAGE: Wine Drinking in a Spring Garden, c.1430, Attributed to Iran, possibly Tabriz, opaque watercolor and gold on undyed silk, Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, public domain

 

 

The Royal Historical Society and HistoryUK are pleased to offer 8 new videos from specialist historians, providing guides to teaching History in UK Higher Education.

The presentations are designed for those new or starting out in teaching. Subjects covered include: creating and presenting a History lecture; working online; teaching with small and large seminar groups; being innovative and creative in your teaching; developing new modules; and providing constructive assessment.

More on the full series and subjects covered >

---

The new guides also feature on the Society’s Teaching Portal, an online repository of 70+ guides, for History teachers and students in Higher Education.

Areas covered by the Portal include teaching practice, innovative modules, online resources for research, and guides to career development post-PhD.

---

 

At its latest meeting on 2 December 2022, the RHS Council elected 102 Fellows, 49 Associate Fellows, 64 Members and 93 Postgraduate Members, a total of 308 people newly associated with the Society. We welcome them all.

The majority of the new Fellows hold academic appointments at universities, specialising in a very wide range of fields; but also include curators, teachers, broadcasters, film-makers, heritage consultants, independent researchers and writers. The Society is an international community of historians and our latest intake includes Fellows from 12 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and United States.

Our latest intake includes a number of historians working outside History departments, in cognate disciplines in higher education: a reminder that the Fellowship is open to all whose research provides a scholarly contribution to historical knowledge.

The new Associate Fellows include not only early career historians in higher education but also historians with professional and private research interests drawn from broadcasting, archives, museums and teaching.

The new Members have a similarly wide range of historical interests, and include individuals employed in universities, and as archaeologists, archivists, civil servants, conservators and surveyors, lawyers and members of the judiciary, and teachers – together with independent and community historians. Our new Postgraduate Members are studying for higher degrees in History, or related subjects, at 38 different universities in the UK, India and the United States. All those newly elected to the Fellowship and Membership bring a valuable range of expertise and experience to the Society.

December 2022 sees the admission of our sixth set of Associate Fellows and Postgraduate Members — two new membership categories introduced in late 2021. These changes to membership (about which you can read more here) enable more historians to join the fellowship, and facilitate more focused support for RHS members at the start of their careers.

New Fellows and Members are elected at regular intervals through the year. The current application round is open and runs to Friday 13 January 2023, with the next closing date being Monday 10 April 2023. Further details on RHS Fellowship and Membership categories (Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member and Postgraduate Member); benefits of membership (including new benefits added from August 2022); deadlines for applications throughout 2023; and how to apply, are available here.

 

New Fellows, elected December 2022

• Robin Adams
• Christin Anderson
• Robert Mervyn Andrews
• Anthi Andronikou
• David Annal
• Gordon Barrett
• Paul Bartrop
• Catherine Bateson
• Michel Beaulieu
• Gurminder Bhambra
• Lindy Brady
• Ben Bronnert Walker
• Carys Brown
• Rhona Brown
• Anthony Bruce
• Sara Caputo
• Jack Meng-Tat Chia
• Rachel Chin
• Stephanie Mooers Christelow
• David Clayton
• Guillaume Coatalen
• Marcus Colla
• Mary Cunningham
• Gavin Daly
• Shomik Dasgupta
• Theodor Dunkelgrün
• Charles Emmerson
• Christina Faraday
• James Fenwick
• Larrie Ferreiro
• Richard Finn
• James Fisher
• Gabriela Frei
• Yan Gao
• John Goodwin
• Daniel Gosling
• Andrew James William Gow
• Martin Halliwell
• Jessica Hammett
• Iain Hay
• Sacha Hepburn
• Christian Hogsbjerg
• Aya Homei
• Hetta Howes
• Gavin Hughes
• Peter Jordan
• Isidoros Katsos
• Siobhan Keenan
• Elisabeth Kehoe
• Ariane Knüsel
• Umit Kurt
• Robert Lambert
• Adrian Leonard
• Henrietta Lidchi
• Kate Loveman
• Deborah Madden
• Brandon Marsh
• Simone Marshall
• Zareer Masani
• Gordon McKelvie
• Bronagh McShane
• Athanasius McVay
• William Melville
• Matthew Metcalfe
• Ian Milligan
• Stephen Mullen
• Souvik Naha
• Thomas Neuhaus
• Brooke Newman
• Helen O’Shea
• Marina Perez de Arcos
• Andrew Pickering
• Toby Purser
• Karen Racine
• Charles Read
• Steven Reid
• Jennifer Richards
• Huw Richards
• Euan Roger
• Anat Rosenberg
• Hannah Ryley
• Sophie Scott-Brown
• Mary Shannon
• Patricio Simonetto
• Jonathan Singerton
• Frederick Smith
• Michael Spence
• Howard Spencer
• Foteini Spingou
• Anastasia Stouraiti
• Jennifer Summers
• Drew Thomas
• Sharon Thompson
• Graham Twelftree
• Vikram Visana
• John Wall
• Ryland Wallace
• Emily Ward
• Emma Whipday
• Benedict Wiedemann
• Roger Willoughby
• Matthew Wilson
• Esther Wright
• Peter Yeandle

New Associate Fellows, elected December 2022

• Zaib un Nisa Aziz
• Philip Ball
• Johan Bergstrom-Allen
• Sushant Bharti
• Amie Bolissian Mcrae
• Kirsty Bolton
• Lyndsie Bourgon
• Caitlin Burge
• John Condren
• David Crowther
• Josephine Cummins
• Fraser Dallachy
• Helen Esfandiary
• Nick Evans
• Aida Fernandez Prieto
• Joshua Fitzgerald
• Beth Gaskell
• Tim Glasby
• Nikolaos Gourof
• Jamie Graves
• Kieran Hazzard
• Melanie Hollis
• Stephanie Howard-Smith
• Sandra Hynes
• Emmeline Ledgerwood
• Bruce Lindsay
• Sophie Mann
• Kate Marlow
• Sean McDonagh
• Moritz Mihatsch
• Sarah-Louise Miller
• Julie Miller
• Szilvia Musasizi
• David Pendleton
• Rebecca Pollack
• Yitong Qiu
• Wilfred Rhoden
• Darrell Rivers
• Olha Romanova
• Raphael Schäfer
• Alireza Shams Lahijani
• Julia Skinner
• Ariane Smart
• Callum Smith
• Joseph Stanley
• Tabitha Stanmore
• Robert Tansey
• Marilla Walker
• Amy Wilson

New Members, elected December 2022

• Matthew Abel
• Mubashir Ak
• Inara Andre
• Emma Ash
• Reka Bajus
• Susan Ballard
• Ursula Petula Barzey
• Tony Biebuyck
• Oliver Bircham
• Julie Boden
• Elaine Bodtmann
• John Bridgeman
• Alberto Casado Gómez
• Fiona Cosson
• Jim Cowie
• Joseph Davies
• Salvatore DiStefano
• Adam Down
• Jasper Elwes
• Gary Fellman
• Jonas Frey
• Sushant Ghildyal
• Rebecca Gorman
• Julie Goucher
• Ruth Graham
• Michael Griffiths
• David Griggs
• Andrew Hammond
• Maxine Harcourt-Kelly
• David Harris
• Sara Hashmi
• Kathrine Hopson
• Charlotte Hosford
• Haining Hu
• Sajjad Kantrikar
• Jo Levitt
• Roger Mann
• Jane McChrystal
• Jessica Morris
• Deborah Morrison
• Patrick Mulvenna
• Daniel  Patrick
• Jan Luca Probeck
• Jeffrey Prosser
• Sankaralingam Rathina Kumar
• Joseph Reilly
• Paul Rodriguez
• Offir Rokach
• Simon  Sardeson-Coe
• Christian Schmeiduch
• Iqbal Shaukat
• Benedict Skipper
• Manda Tamosauskaite
• Lori Thomas
• Adam Thomas-Fennelly
• Jesse Ujagbor
• Lard van den Berg
• Serge Van Den Broucke
• Suganya Vishnu
• Paul Walton
• James Whitaker
• Ian Whitehurst
• Samuel Wigley
• Tsz Ho Wong

New Postgraduate Members, elected December 2022

• Carrissa Anderson
• Mehmet Akif Aydemir
• Richard Balas
• Thomas Banbury
• Eduardo Benítez-Inglott y Ballesteros
• Maia Blumberg
• Matthew Bowen
• Jake Bransgrove
• Dominic Bridge
• Theodora Broyd
• Elizabeth Burrell
• Jaime Caballero
• William Campbell
• Theodore Christodoulidis
• Minji Chun
• Kathryn Comper
• Holly Cooper
• Dylan Coulter
• Darold Cuba
• Edward Day
• Elena Doran
• Spencer Drake
• Hollie Eaton
• Nathan Eckersley
• Teuku Reza Fadeli
• Helen Flatley
• Edward Ford
• Andrew Frow-Jones
• Amilia Gillies
• Kimberly Glassman
• Megan Graham
• David Grant
• Lucy Harrison
• Sarah Hinds
• Mark Hitchins
• Fran Holmes
• Matthew Hurst
• Rebecca Jaffri
• Paul Kelly
• Eva Kemenade
• Lou Khalfaoui
• Ian Lacey
• Harikesh Ladwa
• Mary-Jannet Leith
• Michael Lipiner
• Jessica Lloyd
• Carrie Long
• Amy Longmuir
• Arisa Loomba
• Deanna Lyn Cook
• Cameron Maclean
• Daniel Mazhindu
• Phoebe McDonnell
• Catherine Meredith
• Katherine Milliken
• James Moffatt
• Anna Molnar
• Ben Morris
• Brett Morritt
• Victoria Myhand
• Shankar Nair
• Ellis Naylor
• Yacine Ndao
• Joshua Newmark
• Tanner Ogle
• Megan Palmer
• Odile Liliana Panetta
• Thomas Parkinson
• Jen Pearce
• Aneirin Pendragon
• Rowan Powell
• Carl Julius Reim
• Clément Renault
• Pilar Requejo de Lamo
• Joseph Rix
• Bonnie Robinson
• Alana Rogers
• Brian Roper
• Andrew Sage
• Samapan Saha
• Alba Sanz Alvarez
• Luke Stephenson
• Kieran Stigant
• Eleanor Strangways
• Jonathan Tickle
• Christopher Toole
• Rebecca Tyson
• Alexandra Ward
• Alexandra Watson Jones
• Mark Wilson
• Alex Worsfold
• Morag Wright
• Guangxia Xu

 

HEADER IMAGE: Peasant Couples Dancing, 1580–1600, Johann Theodor de Bry, Netherlandish, after Sebald Beham Germany, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

The Research Excellence Framework (REF), undertaken by the UK’s four HE funding bodies, provides a review and assessment of research in higher education. The results of the latest assessment (REF2021) were published on 12 May 2022.

To accompany publication of the results, Professor Mark Jackson and Professor Margot Finn — respectively chair and deputy chair of the History sub-panel for REF2021 — offer an overview of this latest review, its headline findings for History, and their reflections on disciplinary developments since REF2014.

Mark and Margot’s article reflects on some of the main processes and outcomes of the History sub-panel in its assessment of Outputs, Impact, and research Environments.

Fuller details will be provided in the Sub-panel and Main Panel D (Arts and Humanities) reports published later in May. Over the summer, REF will place further information in the public domain on its website. This will include the text of all submitted Impact Case Studies and Environment statements, providing extensive information about historical practice in the UK.

 

On the Society’s blog today, RHS President Professor Emma Griffin considers the cuts and closures that have affected UK History departments over the past 12 months.

Presently there’s close attention on Goldsmiths, University of London, where proposed cuts to History  threaten 7 full-time posts in a department of 14 historians. Goldsmiths follows similar cases earlier this year: at Aston University, where the History programme was saved from closure (though regrettably this was not the outcome for other departments), and at Kingston University where the History departments was closed and talented, full-time members of academic staff made redundant. Meanwhile, at London South Bank University (LSBU) the History Degree ended this April, as did Sunderland’s after the shutting of its faculty in 2020. Recent months have also seen threats to History provision and staffing at Chester, Hull and Leicester.

In this extended post, Emma Griffin outlines the Society’s response to proposed cuts or closures, and sets out the RHS’s current defence of History and historians at Goldsmiths. The post also asks that historians submit to the Society information on recent cuts, redundancies and closures, to enable the RHS to better understand the patterns of departmental change since the mid 2010s.

The challenges facing many History departments owe much to a removal of the cap on student intake, per institution. The result is considerable instability, disruption and vulnerability: declining figures at some universities, greatly enhanced numbers at others, and cycles of uncertainty for many more. This is an environment, Professor Griffin argues, that far exceeds the capacities of a single organisation or discipline, requiring closer collaboration by national organisations and learned societies in the humanities.

Read ‘Goldsmiths, Aston, Kingston, LSBU …. Confronting History’s Cuts and Closures in 2021′ on the RHS blog, Historical Transactions (2 November 2021).