RHS Workshop Grants enable historians to come together to pursue projects of shared interest. Projects are broadly defined and may focus not only on academic research but also a wider range of activities. Grants offer £1,000 to host a day event.
Applications for RHS Workshop Grants, 2026, have now closed (23 January 2026).
It is expected that the Society will its next call for this programme from late 2026 for awards in Spring 2027.
Workshops support a wider range of group activities relating to history. These may include:
- discussion of an existing research topic or project;
- beginning and testing a research idea, leading to a future project;
- developing new teaching practices;
- piloting work relating to the teaching, research or communication of history;
- planning and writing a grant application;
- undertaking networking and building of academic communities.
Each Workshop receives £1,000 from the Royal Historical Society to cover attendance and the costs of a day meeting.
Workshops will be supported by the Royal Historical Society, with updates on outcomes reported via the RHS blog and social media. Projects leading to publishable work are warmly encouraged to submit content to the Society’s journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, for consideration.
Applicants are welcome to consider hosting Workshops at the Society’s offices at University College London, if desirable.
The Society is particularly keen to support activities for which alternative sources of funding are very limited, or do not exist. The Society seeks to provide grants to those in greatest need of funding, where options for institutional support are minimal or not available.
Eligibility
The Society looks to award up to six Grants to projects in this latest round. Eligible applications will be for projects that:
- have applicants / lead organisers who are current Fellows or members of the Society. For more on how to join the Society, please see here;
- request funds to support travel, venue hire, hospitality and overnight accommodation when required, as well as travel bursaries for public events; grants will not be awarded to support paid work;
- may include participants travelling from Europe in line with the Society’s carbon policy; attendance by participants from further afield will not be supported by the grant;
- remain in contact with the Society before and after the Workshop and agree to contribute an article on their project to the RHS blog, where appropriate.
How to apply
If you have an idea for a workshop and would like to submit a proposal, please provide a 750 to 1,000 word statement. This should outline:
- the academic focus of the Workshop and the topic / activity under consideration
- the purpose and proposed outcome from the Workshop
- costings for holding a one-day event
- the location of the proposed Workshop, and whether this may be the RHS Office at University College London
- the lead organiser(s) and proposed participants who would be involved in the Workshop
- the proposed date of the Workshop
Workshop Grant Recipients for 2026
The following six projects have been awarded funding in April 2026, for projects to be held in 2026 and early 2027:
- Eleanor Bland (Oxford Brookes University), ‘History in Motion: Integrating Historical Methods into Criminology and International Political Economy’
- Wendy Davies (Independent historian), ‘Making and Moving Consumables, 500-1000. From the Local to the Wider World’
- Paul Dudman (University of East London), ‘Refugee History: Community archives and lifelong learning – amplifying the experiences of displacement and solidarity in exile’
- Jayne Gifford (University of East Anglia), ‘“Invisible Work”: Diplomatic Wives and Spouses in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century’
- Meg Kobza (Independent historian), ‘The Person Behind the Pomp and Pageantry: Commemorating the 700th Mayoralty of London’
- Jonathan Spangler and Alyssa Myers (Manchester Metropolitan University), ‘Beyond the Country House’
For questions relating to the Grants please email: [email protected].