The Royal Historical Society is pleased to launch a new programme, from today, to support the work of International Fellows and Associate Fellows. Recipients will be members of the Society, resident outside the UK and Ireland, who seek to undertake research in the UK and / or the Republic of Ireland.
The Society’s new International Research Support Grants provide funds of up to £1000 per award to undertake historical research, for a defined project, in the UK and / or Republic of Ireland. In this opening round, the Society looks to make up to five awards.
This new scheme recognises that many of the Society’s International Fellows and Associate Fellows require financial assistance to access research materials in the UK and the Republic of Ireland for a wide range of historical projects.
Details of this new funding programme are available here. Applications are invited from current International Fellows and International Associate Fellows of the RHS before the closing date of Friday 8 May 2026.
The Society seeks to make this first set of awards in time to enable use during research visits to the UK and / or Ireland from summer 2026.
In addition to this new programme, in 2026 the Society is reintroducing an annual International Fellows’ Lecture. This will enable RHS Fellows, resident outside the UK and Ireland to present their research, via an online event to a wide audience.
We are very pleased that the 2026 International Fellows’ Lecture will be given by Professor Amy Froide (University of Maryland) on Friday 4 December. This lecture will be organised jointly with the UK’s Economic History Society in its centenary year. Professor Froide’s lecture is entitled: ‘The Charitable Corporation Scandal of 1732 and the Female Shareholders who stood up to Financial Fraud’.
Further events are currently being developed to enable international members of the Society — resident outside the UK or Ireland — to participate in RHS activities and work, in line with the proposals set out in the Strategy, 2026-28.
The Royal Historical Society is a membership organisation of more than 7000 historians of all career stages and interests worldwide, with representatives in over 60 countries in addition to the United Kingdom.
Applications to join the Society — as Fellows and Members — by historians in all regions are welcome at any time. For more, please see the Join Us pages of the RHS website.
HEADER IMAGE: Edward Collier, ‘Vanitas Still Life’ (1662), detail, Rijksmuseum, public domain.