ECH Grants: Post-doctoral projects

For post-doctoral projects: Very few historians gain permanent academic employment immediately upon completion of the PhD degree.  Most historians who succeed in gaining such posts experience one or more years of part-time or fixed-contract teaching, or serving as a research assistant on a senior academic’s grant, while they build a publication profile.  Gaining an external postdoctoral fellowship in your own name during this period will allow you to focus on publishing your doctoral research, and crafting a new postdoctoral research programme.  In the UK, postdoctoral fellowships are often advertised in Jobs.ac.uk (http://www.jobs.ac.uk/ ). But you should also keep an eye on the Tuesday edition of the Guardian newspaper:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/higher-education
H-Net http://www.h-net.org/ and the TLS.
Most postdoctoral schemes advertise with only one application deadline per year.  If you start investigating possibilities a year before your PhD viva, you will know well in advance which deadlines you will be eligible to apply for, based on your viva date.

  • British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships: This highly competitive fellowship scheme is open to UK or EEA nationals and persons who have completed a PhD in the UK, within 3 years of completion of the doctorate. An outline application is made in the autumn; short-listed candidates complete a more detailed application in the New Year.  The scheme funds up to 3 years of postdoctoral research.  In preparing your application, it is essential to liaise carefully and well in advance with the proposed host institution and supervisor, which must support your application: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/Postdoctoral_Fellows.cfm
  • European Research Council Starting Grants: These grants are designed for researchers with 2-7 years of postdoctoral experience. If planning to apply for an ERC award, make use of any and all training events organised by your home institution as ERC applications are quite bureaucratic: https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/starting-grant
  • Economic & Social Research Council: Historians of any nationality with a social science emphasis are eligible to apply for ESRC Future Research Leaders postdocs within 4 years of submission of the PhD. It is essential to liaise well in advance with your proposed host institution, which must demonstrate a robust programme of support for your research.  The application deadline for this scheme is normally in the autumn.  See: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/
  • European University Institute: The EUI, based in Florence, offers a number of residential postdoctoral fellowships for ECRs. Details are available from: https://www.eui.eu/en/public/educational-programmes
  • Fulbright: The US Fulbright Commission offers a postdoctoral fellowships, which can be held at US universities. If applying for a Fulbright, give serious thought to applying outside the US equivalent of the ‘Golden Triangle’—that is, the north-east coast, Chicago and California.  The scheme is designed to send Fulbright postdocs throughout the US.  By applying to be based at an appropriate university outside these areas you may enhance your chances of success.  For application details, see: https://fulbright.org.uk/our-programmes/
  • Humanities Centres & Institutes of Advanced Study: Both within and outside the UK, these specialist research institutes often offer residential postdoctoral fellowships that typically range for 3-24 months and provide some combination of office space, library access, research funding, salary or stipend and/or housing.  Examples include:  Central European University IAS, Budapest : https://ias.ceu.edu/core-fellowship CRASSH, Cambridge University: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/programmes/fellowships ; IASH, Edinburgh University: http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/fellowships/ ;  Simon Fellowships, Manchester University: https://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/research/funding/simon-hallsworth-fellowships/ ;  and Warwick IAS.
  • Institute of Historical Research, London: The IHR serves as the umbrella organisation for a number of postdoctoral fellowships funded by UK scholarly societies and charities, including the RHS, the Economic History Society and the Past & Present Society. Applications are typically accepted from January to c. March each year.  See http://www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/junior
  • Junior Research Fellowships: JRFs, typically of 3 years’ duration, are advertised each year by several Cambridge and Oxford colleges, and occasionally by other UK universities.  Some JRFs are open to postdoctoral researchers in any field of study; others specify history as an eligible or desired field of appointment.  For Cambridge JRFs see: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/ ; for Oxford advertisements, see the Oxford Gazette: https://gazette.web.ox.ac.uk/
  • Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships: ECRs with a recent UK PhD or a fixed-term (not permanent) UK academic appointment are eligible for this scheme, which funds 3-year postdoctoral fellowships with limited teaching duties. Because the host institution must share at least 50% of the cost of the fellowship with the Leverhulme Trust, not all universities support applications.  Investigate whether your preferred institution supports application in the autumn, to ensure that you can locate a host institution well in advance of the February application deadline.  (Many institutions have internal deadlines for this scheme that are significantly earlier than the Leverhulme’s deadline).  Note that you cannot apply to hold this award at the institution from which you obtained your PhD.  For details, see https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/early-career-fellowships
  • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellowships: These European Commission awards fund 2-3 year postdoctoral fellowships with generous funding for relocation, research costs and salary. The scheme’s emphasis is on mobility, so expect to hold the award if successful in a country other than the country of your PhD.  Advance planning and communication with your proposed host institution is essential.  The UK Research Office https://www.ukro.ac.uk/mariecurie/Pages/default.aspx offers helpful workshops about these applications annually at various locations in the UK, and many universities also offer specialist guidance on applications, which are highly competitive.
    For details of the scheme, see http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/
  • Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships: The US Mellon Foundation funds a number of humanities-based postdoctoral fellowships which combine teaching and research. Most are based in the US or Canada, but a few UK institutions also offer Mellon postdocs.
  • Specialist Libraries: Several of the specialist libraries noted above under ‘Research Trips’ also offer 3-24 month residential fellowships for national and/or international postdoctoral research fellows. See their websites for details and deadlines.
  • Wellcome Fellowships: The Wellcome Trust funds a number of multi-year postdoctoral fellowships each year in the medical humanities (including history of medicine and history of science).

 

 

 

 

 

Royal Historical Society Library

The Society’s Library comprises more than 1000 books of specialist historical interest, dating from the sixteenth century to the 2020s. With two reading rooms, the Library is located within the main library of University College London, next to the RHS Office and Council Chamber.

 

 

RHS Fellows and Members are welcome to visit the Society’s Library, and also the main UCL collection. Access and use of UCL’s wider History collections is one benefit of joining the Fellowship.

About the Library collection

The RHS Library holds more than 1000 secondary works of historical scholarship on open shelves. The collection comprises antiquarian titles (often gifted by prominent former members of the Society, such as the library of George W. Prothero), the publications of UK record and local history societies, and reference works.

Also available are monographs published by the RHS (including the ‘Studies in History’ and ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series); and complete sets of the Society’s journal, Transactions (1872-2021) and the Camden Series of primary sources (1838-2021).

Listings of these items is available here (open as pdfs):

  • For details of the complete series of the Society’s journal, see the Transactions page of the RHS website.
  • For details of the complete series of the Society’s Camden Series, see the Camden page of the RHS website.

 

RHS reading room and UCL History collections

 

Information services and contacts

The Library also maintains a listing of UK and Irish historical and record societies providing contacts for research; a number of publications for these societies are available in the RHS collection and the UCL History Library.

 

RHS Scouloudi Panel Grants

RHS Panel Grants support the formation of panels to present, in-person, research on a shared historical theme at an academic conference, or equivalent event, in history or a cognate discipline. Launched in 2025, this is the first year of a new programme which is generously supported by the Scouloudi Foundation.


About the Panel Grants programme

The scheme will support the creation of panels, of up to four principal participants, whose formation would not otherwise have been possible, in their entirety, due to an absence of financial support. 

In establishing this programme, the Society seeks to make possible collaborative conference participation and research dissemination at a time when budgets for event attendance and travel have been cut. The scheme also aims to support panel membership by independent historians with no access to funding for conference participation.


The Society expects to make up to two awards, of £1500 per panel, in this first round of Scouloudi Panel Grants to enable attendance at conferences between 1 September 2025 and 31 July 2026.

Applications for this award, 2025-26, closed on Friday 23 May.


Grants support historians to form panels to present historical work, in-person, on a shared theme, at a specific conference or equivalent. Funding of £1500 per panel will be made available to support the following costs associated with the creation of and presentation by a panel:

  • conference or event attendance fees;
  • travel to the conference, in line with the Society’s expenses and carbon policy;
  • accommodation, if required, and reasonable expenses for the duration of the conference.

The venue of the specified conference will depend on the location of panel members. However, the extent of funding available means grants will most likely be given for panels taking place in a home country or a close neighbouring country: for example, for UK applicants this will most likely mean attendance at an event in the United Kingdom or Europe.


Eligibility and making an application for a Panel Grant, 2025-26

Applications are invited for panels that address a coherent and common subject area, relating (but not limited) to:

  • any historical topic or question, not limited by chronology or geography
  • historical methodologies and practice;
  • approaches to historical study and its promotion, e.g. public history, work by historians across professional sectors, interdisciplinary working with other practitioners in the arts, humanities, social sciences and/or STEM;
  • teaching and/or the communication of history;
  • analysis of and advocacy for the historical discipline and profession in higher education or other sectors.

Grants are available to historians those who are:

  • at any career stage, from advanced PhD onwards;
  • working either in higher education or as a professional historian in a related sector, e.g. museums, archives, heritage or broadcasting;
  • engaged in scholarly research as an independent historian.

Successful panel applications will:

  • comprise between three and four principal participants (independent of a chair) of whom at least one panellist (as lead applicant) will be a current Fellow or Member of the Royal Historical Society;
  • involve speakers from at least two different institutions or organisations, where applicable;
  • combine speakers at a range of career stages and backgrounds, including at least one early career historian (current completing or within five years of completion of a PhD);
  • seek to bring into dialogue practitioners from a range of backgrounds: e.g. higher education; museum, archives and heritage; schools; and public or community history groups;
  • be able to demonstrate the need for RHS funding to establish the panel due to the absence of alternative financial support;
  • undertake a panel at a recognised academic conference held between 1 September 2025 and 31 July 2026;
  • promote their panel as supported by the award of a ‘Scouloudi Panel Grant from by Royal Historical Society’;
  • provide a short report for the Society on the panel as a collaborative exercise and its contribution to historical understanding, knowledge and/or practice, of value to others;
  • will receive an initial provisional award, followed by the transfer of funds on confirmation that their panel has been accepted by the conference (if confirmation is not possible by the date of this programme’s close and decision-making).

When awarding grants, primary consideration will be given to the proposed quality and value of the panel; the distinctiveness of a panel’s composition, drawing on historians’ varied affiliations within and beyond higher education; the suitability of a panel to the specified conference; and a demonstrable need for funding to facilitate the activity. 

In this and all similar awards, the Society is keen to support historians who lack access to alternative resources (institutional or other) to enhance their work, or where funding opportunities are very limited.

Applications must be submitted via the Society’s applications portal >


Questions about the Scouloudi Panel Grants, 2025-26, may be sent to: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Bibliography of British and Irish History

Until 31 December 2024, the Society was a partner in the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH). The Bibliography is the most comprehensive and accurate guide available to what’s been published in British and Irish history over the past 100 years.

From January 2025, the Bibliography remains a research and publishing project of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), University of London, and the Belgian publisher, Brepols. It is edited by staff at the Institute of Historical Research, with specialist academic advisers acting as section editors. 

From 2025, and with thanks to Brepols, Fellows and Members of the Society remain able to subscribe to the Bibliography at a significantly reduced rate. Those interested in taking up this RHS membership offer should contact: administration@royalhistsoc,org, marking their email ‘BBIH’.


From November 2024, the Bibliography has a new search interface, offering a new look to the resource. For more on this, please see here.

What does BBIH offer historians of Britain and the British world?

  • contains 660,000+ records of books, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters;
  • includes details of history publications from the early 1900s to the current year;
  • adds regular online updates of c.10,000 new publications each year;
  • covers the history of the British Isles, the former empire and Commonwealth, the British world, and Britons’ activities on the global stage, from Roman Britain to the 21st century;
  • contains publications relating to British influence in Europe, the trans-Atlantic and informal empire;
  • searchable via a range of options. These include: by author, title of publication, subject area, period and places covered, publication type and date/s of publication;
  • offers cross-searchability with the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The National Register of Archives and IHR digital resources including ‘Reviews in History’ and British History Online.

What makes BBIH a key research tool?

  • BBIH has been created using systematic and extensive surveys of data on all relevant new publications, including weekly reviews of 800 academic journals and records of new acquisitions by the British Library;
  • Provides links to individual publications in your library or a union catalogue, along with links to Google Books, selected on-line book reviews, and full text versions of articles;
  • BBIH enables you to create your own comprehensive bibliography on any topic, using a range of a variety export formats (including Refworks and EndNote);
  • Generates email updates of new publications relevant to your research interests.

Access or subscribe to BBIH

The Bibliography of British and Irish History is an online subscription service that’s available via a very wide range of UK higher education institutions and research libraries, as well as universities and libraries worldwide.

  • For members of subscribing institutions, access is available either via your library’s website or via Brepols’ online portal website: www.brepolis.net;
  • Institutions wishing to subscribe to BBIH can obtain a 30-day free trial period, along with a price quotation and details on a licence agreement. One-year trials are now also available with 50% discount; UK institutions are priced according to JISC bandings. For further information, please email: brepolis@brepols.net;
  • Individual subscriptions to BBIH are also available, with significant discounts for Fellows and Members of the RHS. For further enquiries, please email: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

For further information about the Bibliography and its use in research and teaching, see the BBIH pages on the IHR website.

 

Early Career Research Support Grants

 

Early Career Research Support Grants provide funds to early career historians (historians who are within 5 years of submitting their PhD in a historical subject) to undertake research. Applicants must also be members of the Royal Historical Society.

Activities supported include: visiting an archive or historic site, or conducting interviews. This grant cannot be used to support attendance at, or production of a conference.

Please note that within your application you will be asked to provide information on any current employment (if applicable) and access to related or other research funding support. This information will be reviewed by the RHS Research Support Committee and may be used in prioritising applications for funding support, however access to other sources of funding will not alone invalidate your application. You will also be asked to supply an academic reference.


In 2025, grants of either £500 or £1000 per grant (based on the research activity to be undertaken) will be awarded by the Society. The remaining closing dates for applications in 2025 are as follows:

  • Friday 6 June 2025, now closed
  • Friday 5 December 2025

Applications for Early Career Research Support Grants are invited via the Society’s applications portal.


Further notes on eligibility:

  • Early Career Research Support Grants are reserved for those who are members of the Royal Historical Society. To join the Society, please see here.
  • Funding is reserved for research projects that are both clearly and predominantly historical in orientation, with a specific chronological remit.
  • Applicants who have previously been awarded an ‘Early Career Research Support Grant’ will not be eligible for further funding under this scheme.
  • Applications for funding for research taking place within 4 weeks of the application deadline will not be considered.
  • Applications for retroactive research visits/activities will not be considered.

All applications for the Early Career Research Support Grants are reviewed by the RHS Research Support Committee, formed of members of the Society’s Council. Review of applications will not take place until the deadline for submission has passed. An average timeline for review, ratification and notification of the outcome of an application is around six weeks after the deadline.

Please note that all applications, successful or otherwise, will be directly notified of their outcome.


Early Career Research Support Grant recipients in 2025

  • Thomas Wright – awarded January 2025
  • Jocelyn Zimmerman – awarded January 2025
  • Katherine Burns – awarded January 2025
  • Jessica Venner – awarded January 2025

HEADER IMAGE: Henry Heide Confectionary Co.- Seven Buildings Occupied by the Business, after 1882, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

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RHS Adam Matthew Digital Collections Subscriptions

The Royal Historical Society (RHS) is delighted to announce that Adam Matthew Digital (AM) has generously agreed to award the Society 200 twelve-month subscriptions to its digitised collections of primary sources. These licenses will be made available free-of-charge to early career researchers (ECRs) based at UK universities for their doctorate.  This agreement will significantly enhance the access of ECR historians to digital primary materials during the dislocations, travel restrictions and archive and library closures that are necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. You can find out more about the scheme’s launch on the RHS blog.

How do I apply?

The 200 free subscriptions will be allocated by the RHS in 3 successive tranches, with deadlines in late May, June and July 2020.

While we do not have a precedent to gauge potential demand, we expect the number of eligible and worthy applications to be considerably higher than the number of available subscriptions. Allocation will accordingly be phased over a 3-month period and undertaken by a 3-fold process:

  • determination of applicants’ eligibility;
  • assessment of eligible applicants’ relative need for the Adam Matthew Digital Collections to advance their research; and
  • in the event that demand exceeds supply, awards will be made by a lottery of eligible applicants who demonstrate substantial need. Please see the Q&A below for more information.
Applications for a RHS Adam Matthew Digital Collections Subscription must be made using the online application form. Please note that you can access the application form through the Research/Conference Grants program within the RHS applications portal.

 

Prospective applicants should:

  • Check their eligibility against the criteria detailed below;
  • If eligible to apply, explore the Adam Matthew Digital Collections to identify which if any materials are substantially relevant for your research project. The 200 twelve-month subscriptions Adam Matthew has kindly allocated to the RHS include not only the 8 million+ pages of primary source material in the Research Source Platform, but also over 70 thematic collections made available through 2019.
  • Having confirmed both eligibility and the need for/utility of the Adam Matthew Digital Collections for your research, make an online application by any one of the 3 stated deadlines.
  • Please note that (unless you specify otherwise) if your application in Round 1 is unsuccessful, but deemed by the RHS assessors to be both eligible and to demonstrate substantial need/utility with respect to the Adam Matthew Digital Collections, it will be resubmitted automatically by RHS for Rounds 2 and 3.  Likewise, eligible applications that demonstrate substantial need/utility which are initially submitted in Round 2 will automatically be resubmitted by RHS for Round 3.

Who is eligible to apply?

Two categories of History ECRs are eligible to apply:

  • Those registered for a PhD/DPhil or an MPhil in a historical subject at a UK institution. Registration may be full-time or part-time.
  • Those within two years (at the time of the application) of receiving their doctorate from a UK institution, and who are not yet in full-time employment. Please note the two years does not include any periods of maternity or paternity leave. Please detail this in the ‘any other information’ section of your application form.

Questions and Answers:

  • Do I need to be physically-based in the UK at the time of my application?
    •   We understand that international and other eligible ECRs may be resident outside the UK at the time of their application.  If you are/were registered for a doctoral degree at a UK university (for PhD/DPhil students) OR would normally be resident in the UK as of March 2020 (for postdoctoral ECRs) your current place of residence need not be within the UK.
  • Can I share my Adam Matthew Digital subscription with other students or researchers?
    • Your subscription is awarded solely for your personal research use. The application form includes a fair use declaration to which you agree to adhere in applying for this scheme.
  • Why is the RHS using a lottery as part of its allocation process?
    • Allocation of research resources by lottery is a mechanism that is currently being tested internationally where demand exceeds supply. It arguably affords less scope for conscious or unconscious bias than conventional grant allocation systems.  In the current context, its benefits also include rapidity. It also takes into account the extent to which this scheme will entail work for Adam Matthew Digital and RHS staff already stretched by the demands of the COVID-19 crisis.  The RHS will employ this mechanism, after preliminary peer-review assessments of eligibility and need/utility, in the event that more ECRs apply than can be accommodated by this scheme.
  • Do I need to provide a post-award report to the RHS and/or to Adam Matthew Digital?
    • Successful applicants will be asked to provide a short report on the uses to which the grant has been put and the outcome in terms of contribution to the progress of their research following the end of the subscription.
  • If I receive a RHS Adam Matthew Digital Collections Subscription will my eligibility to apply in future for standard RHS funding (for research trips or conferences) be affected?
    • No. Receipt of a subscription will not ‘count’ against your total eligibility (currently twice as a PhD student and once as a postdoctoral ECR) to receive awards from our standard funding schemes.
  • Do I need to acknowledge the support of Adam Matthew Digital and/or the RHS in my dissertation and/or subsequent publications?
    • Please use the following credit line in any research outputs that benefit from the subscription: ‘Research for this article/blog/dissertation/book was supported by the award of a Royal Historical Society Adam Matthew Digital subscription in 2020.’

Contact Us

All enquiries should be sent to Imogen Evans, RHS Administrative Secretary at adminsecretary@royalhistsoc.org.

 

 

SSLH BA/Masters Dissertation Bursary

Are you studying labour history topic for your dissertation or are you supervising a student who is?

The Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH) BA/Masters Dissertation Bursary supports archival and library research that will contribute to a dissertation on a labour history topic. The maximum of individual awards is £500. For the academic year 2020-21, it supports access to online/digitised material. This may include, for example, digitisation/copying costs of material provided to individual students for their research or individual subscriptions to online archival databases (where there is no access through the applicant’s institution).

Bursary holders must either be in the final year of an undergraduate degree or undertaking a taught Masters degree. They must be a registered student at a university in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. The application form and further information can be found here: https://sslh.org.uk/bursaries-grants/