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AGM and Annual Reports

Anniversary Meeting (AGM), 2023

 

The Society’s 2023 AGM took place on Friday 24 November 2023.

Papers for the AGM are as follows:

Anniversary Meeting (AGM), 2022

 

The Society’s 2022 AGM took place on Friday 25 November 2022.

Papers for the AGM are as follows:

 

Special General Meeting, 2022

A Special General Meeting of the Society took place on Friday 18 February 2022, to receive the Society’s Annual Review and Statutory Accounts, 2020-21.

Papers for the SGM are:

 

Anniversary Meeting (AGM), 2021

The Society’s 2021 AGM took place on Friday 26 November 2021.

Papers for the AGM were as follows:

 

Annual Reports and Financial Statements of the Royal Historical Society

The Society publishes an annual Report on its activities, covering the previous financial year (1 July to 30 June), together with the Society’s Financial Statement for that year.

2022
2021
2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

 

RHS Reports

Since 2015, the RHS has published four major reports on equality in UK History departments and teaching at University level.

 

ECH Publishing: Journals

‘Printing: a three-quarter view of a press’, Engraving by W. Lowry after J. Farey, 1819, Wellcome Trust Collection, public domain

 

Journals provide a miraculously free and civic-spirited service that aims to improve your work – peer review. When you submit a paper to a journal, the editors ought to send it out to at least two peer reviewers (sometimes several – practices differ). They ought to have some specialist knowledge of your subject. If your subject is controversial, one ought to be ‘on your side’, another perhaps hostile or at least neutral.

Ideally, peer-review is ‘double-blind’ – the reviewer doesn’t know your identity, you don’t know theirs. In small specialisms, where everyone knows who their fellow-workers are, this anonymity is difficult to maintain, but it’s an ideal worth preserving, so try (as best you can) to anonymise your own manuscript – don’t refer to other work of yours, or if you do refer to it in the third-person.

You should get reports back within 2-3 months. (Does this seem slow to you? Remember, your referees are doing this as a public service, and they probably have more than full-time jobs, so they will fit such tasks in when time allows. Anyway, what’s the rush? History moves slowly.) They ought to provide feedback not only on whether the paper is publishable, but also on the specific arguments, evidence, style and presentation. With the reports, the editors will deliver a verdict. They might accept or reject your paper outright. More likely, they’ll ask you to ‘revise and resubmit’.

A good editor will steer you towards specific comments in the referees’ reports that you ought to take into account when revising. (If they don’t, and the reports are contradictory, ask for a steer.) Take as much or as little time to revise as you like – the ball is in your court. Sometimes editors will send your paper back without peer review. This will normally be because they think it unsuitable for the journal. Try another journal.

For more details on what and how to submit, and where, see submitting to a journal.

 

Call for Editors: Transactions of the RHS

 

The Royal Historical Society seeks to appoint two academic Editors to lead on the scholarly oversight and development of its journal, the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (TRHS), published by Cambridge University Press. The two new appointments take effect from 1 January 2022 and coincide with the journal’s move, in 2021, to accepting external submissions of articles, for peer review and publication.

We are looking for editors with complementary research expertise, one in medieval or early modern, the other in any field of modern history, with at least one specialising in European or Global History. Given the nature of this dual appointment, and the need for collaborative working, we welcome joint applications from two potential editors to work together; however, individual applications are equally encouraged. Applicants must be Fellows of the Royal Historical Society.

A full editorial board will be appointed from early 2022 to assist the two Editors in developing the Transactions to reflect the research interests and priorities of the Society’s membership. Those interested in joining the new editorial team but currently lacking the experience or time required to take on an editorial role are invited to use the RHS application portal (see below) to submit an expression of interest in joining the Transactions editorial board.

This is an exciting new phase for the journal as we extend its scale and scope. If you wish to discuss the journal or the Editor posts in advance of an application, please contact Professor Emma Griffin, RHS President (president@royalhistsoc.org) or Professor Andrew Spicer, RHS Literary Director (aspicer@brookes.ac.uk).

The deadline for applications, via the RHS Applications Portal, is 11:59PM, Friday 15 October 2021

 

About the Transactions

The Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is the flagship journal of the Royal Historical Society (RHS).  It has been publishing the highest quality scholarship in history for over 150 years. The journal publishes articles dealing with any geographical area from the early middle ages to the very recent past, and is interested in articles that cover entirely new ground, thematically or methodologically, as well as those that engage critically on established themes in existing literatures. Alongside research articles, contributions that engage with pedagogy and key issues facing the profession are welcomed. In line with the RHS’s commitment to supporting postgraduate and early career historians, the journal encourages submissions from younger scholars and seeks to engage constructively and positively with new authors.

Traditionally edited by the trustees of the RHS, and confined to publishing articles based on lectures presented at RHS events, the Transactions has recently opened its pages to external submissions. The Society is now seeking two external editors to take on the work of editing the journal. We are looking for editors with complementary research expertise, one in medieval or early modern, the other in any field of modern history, with at least one specialising in European or Global History. Applicants must be Fellows of the Royal Historical Society. Given the nature of this dual appointment, and the need for collaborative working, we welcome joint applications from two potential editors to work together; however, individual applications are equally encouraged.

The Transactions is currently published once per year by Cambridge University Press, and we have plans to increase the size and scope of the journal. As a member of the new editorial team, you will have a strong commitment to helping us realise that ambition. It is vital that the successful candidates have genuine curiosity and enthusiasm for the broad, interdisciplinary scope of the journal and creative, imaginative and sustainable ideas for its further development. Applicants must be able to demonstrate an interest in taking part in methodologically diverse historical debates, in connecting with new authors and new audiences, and in actively promoting the Transactions as a home for research articles that are novel and accessible in equal measure.

The position attracts an annual honorarium linked to the volume of submissions and currently set at £500. Ideally, the successful candidates will be able to take up the position on 1 January 2022. They will be fully supported by the outgoing editors, by trustees, the RHS’s Academic Director and other staff at the Society, as well as, in due course, an editorial board. The successful candidates will have a six-month trial period before committing to take on their positions.

 

TRHS Editorial Board: expressions of interest

As part of our redevelopment plans, we will also be establishing an active editorial board to assist the editors in their work. This too is a new development for the journal. The new editors will, in collaboration with the RHS, help to define and appoint this editorial board. We expect to have at least the first set of editorial members in post by early 2022, with remaining members appointed later in the year.

Those interested in joining the new editorial team but currently lacking the experience or time required to take on an editorial role are invited to use the same ‘Editors, TRHS’ application form via the RHS portal (see below) to submit an expression of interest in joining the Transactions editorial board.

 

 

About the two Editorship roles

Responsibilities of the editors include:

  • Developing and implementing a strategy to grow the journal, further enhance the position of the journal both in the academic community and in relation to other leading journals
  • Reading submissions in a timely fashion and deciding whether the article should be rejected or continue to external peer review
  • Organising the peer-review process, all conducted through the online system, Scholar One, including identifying appropriate reviewers and ensuring that reports are received in a reasonable timeframe
  • Making timely decisions, based on peer-review reports, as to whether an article should be accepted for publication
  • Commissioning and overseeing the production of occasional alternative formats, such as Special Issues, relevant to the journal’s aims and scope
  • Reporting to the RHS President and trustees (principally the Society’s Publication Committee as well as Council) on editorial strategy, progress, and proposed developments; attending Publication Committee meetings held 2-3 times / year
  • Taking initial responsibility for any authorial disputes or concerns as the lead figures for the Society’s journal, and on behalf of trustees
  • Collaborating with the social media team at the RHS to help promote the journal and its authors
  • Building the journal’s community of contributors and reviewers, including establishing the Editorial Board and periodically reviewing it
  • Attending editorial team meetings
  • Acting as a liaison between the journal and the broader academic community, including identifying promising contributors and/or commissioning articles
  • Participating in conversations and negotiations with the journal’s publisher
  • Representing the journal and promoting it when possible, with the support of the RHS and the publisher

 

Specifications

In appointing the two Editors, the RHS seeks applicants who have:

  • Experience of academic editorial work, broadly defined
  • Expertise in some field of interest in the journal’s scope, as well as a willingness to work beyond their own specific expertise
  • Existing scholarly networks and experience of academic collaboration and/or organisation
  • Flexibility to be able to support the journal’s editorial process throughout the calendar year
  • Has knowledge and experience of academic publishing and editing processes
  • Has a PhD or similar in a relevant field. We anticipate that this position might be of interest to both early and mid-career academics; we are happy to receive applications from individuals at different career stages.
  • Can attend regular editorial and RHS Publication Committee meetings (potentially online).

 

How to apply

Submission must be made via the Society’s applications platform.

 

Two Editors posts

Those interested in making an application for one of the two Editors posts should send:

  • a CV (no more than 3 pages)
  • a letter / statement outlining their ability to perform the role and relevant experience
  • a summary of no more than 500 words outlining their plans for developing the journal in terms of extent and intellectual ambition
  • The name of two referees. We will not contact referees without prior permission

 

Expressions of interest for the Editorial Board

Those expressing interest in joining the new editorial board (also from January 2022), should use the same application link and form. In this case please provide us with:

  • a CV (no more than 3 pages)
  • a statement of no more than 500 words setting out your interest in the board, your suitability, and what you would bring to the role and development of the journal

Applicants are very welcome both to apply for the Editor roles and express an interest in the editorial board. Please make this clear in you application and you will be considered for both positions.

Informal enquiries about the role may be made to: Professor Emma Griffin (president@royalhistsoc.org) or Professor Andrew Spicer (aspicer@brookes.ac.uk).

Questions about the application process may be sent to: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

Deadline for applications: 11:59PM, Friday 15th October 2021

 

Equalities

Inequality remains a major challenge for historians in UK higher education. The Royal Historical Society is today an important voice for equality in the discipline and profession. This work takes many forms, and continues to develop and evolve in response to circumstance.

The Society seeks to provide practical support where it’s most needed and impactful—often in partnership with organisations with shared aims. Current initiatives are either led by members of the Society’s Council (its governing body) or in partnership with external groups. In 2022, these include:

  • Masters’ Scholarships: for early career historians from groups underrepresented in academic history. The programme, seeks to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By supporting Masters’ students, the programme focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers.
  • ‘Positive action’ workshops for early career historians of colour – ‘Applying for an Academic Job’: these workshops offer one-to-one guidance and group discussion. Sessions cover CV writing, applications, and proposals for funded research, among other topics, for up to 30 historians at a time. This workshop runs annually, with a report from the first series (held in 2021) available here.
  • From 2024, a similar Mentoring and Workshop programme for early career historians of colour – ‘Publishing first journal articles’
  • ‘Writing Race’, featuring new research on histories of research from guest contributors.
  • Support for external projects including:

— co-sponsorship (with the Runnymede Trust) of the Harriet Tubman Essay Prize, run by the British Association for Nineteenth-Century American Historians (BrANCH). The prize is awarded annually for the best undergraduate essay or research project by Black, Asian, or other minority ethnic students based in the UK.

— funding for the Social History Society’s BME Small Grants programme; these grants of up to £1000 support Black and Minority Ethnic historians working in the UK and/or histories of BME people.

         — promotion of national events, including Windrush75 (June 2023)

The Society’s current equalities work is informed by the findings of its important studies on the historical profession relating to gender, race and ethnicity, and sexual identity:

 

Of these initiatives, the Society’s Race Reports has been particularly widely adopted. Between 2019 and 2022, this programme has been supported by an RHS Race, Ethnicity & Equality Fellowship, generously funded by the Past & Present Society.

The contribution of this Fellowship, and the future of the Society’s race equalities work, is summarised in ‘Race, Ethnicity and Equality in History. A Review and Look Ahead’ (November 2022).

 

If you wish to contact the historians who make up the Society’s Council (trustees) about current or potential areas of equalities work, please email: equalities@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Submit an event to the RHS listings page

 

Please complete this form to submit an event you wish to promote on the RHS External Events listing.

We welcome events relating to History within and beyond Higher Education. These may include details of: lectures, seminar series, conferences, symposia, exhibitions and calls for papers, among others. Please note that calls for papers will be listed by the deadline for submission of papers and not of the conference itself. If you wish to advertise the resulting conference, please submit a second request.

Listing is not an indication of the Royal Historical Society’s support for an event, and we remind organisers of the recommendations in our reports on Race, Ethnicity and Equality and Gender Equality: events in the discipline should be diverse and inclusive.

Please note that all submitted events will be listed on our External Events Listing within a week of submission. However, due to the number of submissions each week, they will only appear on the email circular nearer to the date of the event.

 

 

Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery: debates, legacies and new directions for research

 

Panel Discussion

17:00 BST, Tuesday 13 June 2023, Online 

Watch the recording of this event

 

Speakers at the event

  • Dr Heather Cateau (University of the West Indies and University of St Andrews)
  • Dr Stephen Mullen (University of Glasgow)
  • Professor Harvey Neptune (Temple University)
  • Professor Meleisa Ono-George (University of Oxford)
  • Professor Matthew J. Smith (University College London, and chair)

About the event

Eric Williams’ Capitalism and Slavery (1944) remains a powerful, provocative and influential work of historical scholarship. For Williams, chattel slavery provided Britain with the capacity to develop commercial and industrial capitalism, and—in turn—the means to power an eighteenth-century industrial revolution. As the profits of slavery declined, Williams argued, so did British commitment to the slave trade—the motivations for abolition of the slave trade (1807) and of slavery (1834) being economic rather than humanitarian.

In this international panel, historians working in the fields of eighteenth-century Caribbean slavery and slave economy, and Anglo-Caribbean society, come together to consider the debates and legacies of Capitalism and Slavery. First published in the UK by André Deutsch in 1964, Williams’ classic text — ‘perhaps the most influential book written in the twentieth century on the history of slavery (Oxford DNB) — is gaining a new readership following its republication as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2022.

Panellists will introduce, and set in context, the scholarly and political work of Eric Williams (1911-1981), as well as review nearly 80 years of responses to Capitalism and Slavery. Our panel considers the value and contribution of the ‘Williams’ thesis’ in contemporary scholarship. Speakers will also offer their perspectives on future research directions for histories of slavery and the slave economy, as well as the social and economic history of the Caribbean, in the long eighteenth century.

 

About our panellists

  • Heather Cateau is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of the West Indies where she teaches Caribbean history, economic history, and Caribbean historiography. Heather is a specialist in the study of plantation systems and comparative systems of enslavement. Her books include Capitalism and Slavery Fifty Years Later (2000, with Selwyn Carrington); History of the Caribbean in the Atlantic World (2005, with John Campbell), and Beyond Tradition: Reinterpreting the Caribbean Historical Experience (2006, with Rita Pemberton). From 2023 Heather is a Senior Research Fellow in the History department at the University of St Andrews.
  • Stephen Mullen teaches History at the University of Glasgow and is the author of The Glasgow Sugar Aristocracy. Scotland and Caribbean Slavery, 1775-1838, published in November 2022, which considers the Williams’ thesis in a Scottish context. Stephen’s other publications include the reports Glasgow, Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: an Audit of Historic Connections and Modern Legacies (2022, for Glasgow City Council) and Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow (2018, with Simon Newman).
  • Harvey R. Neptune is Professor of History at Temple University, Philadelphia, specialising in the post-emancipation history of the Caribbean. Harvey’s publications include Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the US Occupation (2007) and ‘Throwin’ Scholarly Shade: Eric Williams in the New Histories of Capitalism and Slavery’, Journal of the Early Republic (2019).
  • Meleisa Ono-George is Associate Professor and Brittenden Fellow in Black British History at The Queen’s College, University of Oxford. A social-cultural historian of race and gender, Meleisa’s research and publications consider Black women’s histories in Britain and the Anglo-Caribbean from the late eighteenth century.
  • Matthew J. Smith is is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London. A specialist in the history of Haiti and Jamaica, Matthew’s recent publications include The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture Politics co-edited with Diana Paton (2021) and Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica After Emancipation (2014).
Watch the recording of this event >

More on the Royal Historical Society’s events programme, 2023 >

 

Publishing your work

Written in 2014-15 by Professor Peter Mandler (RHS President, 2012-16)

Everyone wants to publish their work, and not only for ‘career progression’; what’s the point of doing your research if no-one reads it? By the same token, you want to publish your work in places and formats that will reach the widest audiences. But if this were all publishing was about, then you would just post your work online (on a site such as academia.edu or on your own webpage or site) and let people come to it.

In fact, publishing isn’t just about disseminating your work – it’s about improving it, and about ‘kitemarking’ it (getting marks of quality attached to it that will suggest to potential readers that it’s worth reading). It is these two additional criteria that cause many historians – especially those just starting out in their publishing career – to submit to journals. There are other ways of publishing article-length papers – notably as chapters in books.

Ultimately, most historians want to tackle a ‘long-form’ publication similar to their PhD thesis – that is, a book of one’s own. These are the main forms of publication, but they hardly exhaust the range of outlets – there are many other formats. If you’re a UK scholar, you’ll also be interested in thinking about how your publications are likely to be assessed for purposes of the REF.

 

1. Journals

Journals provide a miraculously free and civic-spirited service that aims to improve your work – peer review. When you submit a paper to a journal, the editors ought to send it out to at least two peer reviewers (sometimes several – practices differ). They ought to have some specialist knowledge of your subject. If your subject is controversial, one ought to be ‘on your side’, another perhaps hostile or at least neutral. Ideally, peer-review is ‘double-blind’ – the reviewer doesn’t know your identity, you don’t know theirs. READ MORE

Submitting to a journal

What makes a good journal article? First, it must stand on its own. It may be a version of a chapter of a PhD dissertation, but it has to be self-contained. Second, it ought to have a strong and distinctive argument. The standard way to demonstrate this is by reference to the historiography – but it’s not enough (or even, really, at all persuasive) to say that your subject has been ‘neglected’ by the historiography.  READ MORE

Publishing in a journal

Once a journal has accepted your work, you still have some time to polish it up (e.g. by adding references to the most recently published work, or by tinkering with your prose, or by addressing lesser criticisms in your readers’ reports). Most journals now process accepted manuscripts through a software system that will let you upload your final manuscript and will subsequently lead you through the publication process. READ MORE

After publication

Nothing at all may happen. If you’re lucky, a few readers may write to you – expressing interest, asking questions about your sources and methods, perhaps disagreeing with you. Mostly, though, readers read and digest on their own. READ MORE

 

2. Chapters in books

Unlike the practice of many other disciplines, historians publish a lot in collections of essays – normally not all their own essays, but collections ‘from divers hands’ edited by one or two colleagues. READ MORE

 

3. A book of one’s own

For good reasons, a book of your own – now sometimes called a ‘monograph’, although this really only means a specialist work by a single author (and so technically could apply to a journal article) – is widely seen as the gold standard of historiography.  READ MORE

Publishing a Book (I)

Book publishing remains fairly traditional, not as affected by the digital revolution as journal publishing. As with journals, however, there are a range of book publishers that you can probably array in a quality sequence depending on your own experience of your own field. Generally, though, they break down into three types: i) university presses; ii) big commercial presses; iii) boutique commercial presses. READ MORE

Publishing a book (II)

If an editor has agreed to review a proposal on its own, you may get a response in a month or so, as a short proposal does not receive a lot of scrutiny from reviewers. If you have submitted a complete manuscript, six months is not unusual. It takes a long time for a peer reviewer to find the space to give a full book manuscript the attention it deserves. READ MORE

After publication

Unlike with journal articles, you are almost guaranteed to get some feedback, at least within the first year, in the form of book reviews. Your publisher will ask you for a list of journals that are relevant to your book – you’re entitled to give them a reasonably long list, though make sure that they really are relevant and do publish book reviews. READ MORE

 

4. Other formats

A very large majority of the work published by historians appears in one of these three formats – journal articles, chapters in books, books. These formats allow for the evidence intensive and subject-extensive treatment that history favours. But there are lots of other ways to publish, especially online, and these alternative formats tend to cater to other needs than the simple presentation of research. READ MORE

 

5. REF

If you are a UK scholar, or seeking employment in the UK, you will need to pay some minimal attention to the REF (the Research Excellence Framework, the current name for the periodic assessment of academic research undertaken by the UK funding bodies). READ MORE

 

 

HEADER IMAGE: A printer’s workshop: on the left a printing press, on the right and centre workmen engaged in various tasks, the scene numbered for a key. Engraving after L.J. Goussier. Wellcome Trust, public domain

 

Past & Present Postdoctoral Fellowship: Race, Ethnicity & Equality in History

For the past several years, the Society has been actively involved in monitoring and enhancing equalities issues in UK History, producing reports on gender equality in the discipline in 2015 and 2018 and its first report on Race, Ethnicity & Equality in UK History in 2018, followed by a 2019 ‘Roadmap for Change Update’.

The RHS is now advertising a new Past & Present Postdoctoral Fellowship: Race, Ethnicity & Equality in History.

The advertised post, funded by the Past & Present Society, is intended to support and continue the Society’s equalities work, with an especial focus on race and ethnicity. It will build on the work undertaken by the Society’s first Past & Present Fellow: Race, Ethnicity & Equality in History, who is taking up a full time, permanent Lectureship in History in September 2020.

Full details of the post and application process are available to download here.

Applications for the post must be made through the RHS application portal here: https://royalhistorical.smapply.io.

Enquiries should be made to Professor Margot Finn by email to president@royalhistsoc.org.

 

For further information on what the role entails, see “Reflections on a Year as Past and Present Postdoctoral Fellow working on Race, Ethnicity and Equality” on the RHS blog.

 

First Hume Studies Essay Prize

First Hume Studies Essay Prize

The Hume Society invites submissions for the first Hume Studies Essay Prize, to be awarded in 2022. The biennial competition is open to those ten or fewer years from the Ph.D., including those currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program. The winning paper will be published with acknowledgment in Hume Studies, and the author will receive $1,000. To be eligible for the first prize, papers must be submitted any time before and including August 1, 2021 (11:59 Eastern Daylight Savings time). Authors will be asked as a step in the submission process whether they qualify. Papers will undergo the regular anonymized referee review process and a separate anonymous review by a subset of members of the Editorial Board, who will decide the competition winner. Papers not selected for the award may still be accepted for publication. The editors can decide not to move submissions on to the Board review if referee reports indicate they would not be competitive. The Editorial Board reserves the right not to award a prize in any given competition.

The first winning essay will appear next year in a 2022 issue of Hume Studies. Please direct questions to forthcoming editors, Elizabeth Radcliffe (eradcliffe@wm.edu) or Mark Spencer (mspencer@brocku.ca).

Image credit: David Hume Memorial Plaque in Edinburgh, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 licence