RHS / Scouloudi grants for public history and conference panels, 2026-27: applications now invited

23 March 2026

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to launch the latest round of grants supporting collaborative public history and panel conference formation. Both grants for 2026-27 are made possible thanks to a generous subvention from the Scouloudi Foundation.

This is the second year of the RHS / Scouloudi Public History Grants and Panel Grants.

Applications are now invited for the following:

  • Scouloudi Public History Grants: providing funds of £1000 per award to support innovative practice in public history for defined projects by historians working in higher education with practitioners from other sectors. One of the two lead applicants for this grant must be a current member of the Royal Historical Society. Next closing date: Friday 5 June 2026.
  • Scouloudi Panel Grants: providing funding of £1500 per award to enable the creation 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. The lead applicant for this grant must be a current member of the Royal Historical Society. Awards will make possible participation by panellists with no alternative source of funding. Next closing date: Friday 5 June 2026.

Further details of these programmes and how to apply are available by following the links above.

The 2025-26 recipients of these awards were as follows:

Public History Grants

  • Rachel Dishington (University of Nottingham) and Sarah Colborne (University of Nottingham Archives) , ‘Living and Working Along the Leen’. More about this project.
  • Iqbal Singh (The National Archives) and Eleanor Newbigin (SOAS, University of London), ‘Participatory workshops on colonial history for historians in higher education, the GLAM sector and community history groups’
  • Kathleen McIlvenna (University of Derby) and Kate Crossley (Arkwright Society), ‘Re-interpreting Florence Nightingale in Derbyshire’
  • Rachel Delman (University of Oxford) and James Spellane (The Charterhouse), ‘London’s Watery Heritage: Co-producing New Knowledge about the Charterhouse Water Maps’

Panel Grants

  • ‘Commons and Communities: Celebrating Professor Andy Wood’, with speakers Lily R. Chadwick, Mark Hailwood, Susannah Ottaway and Steve Hindle: to enable Lily Chadwick (Woodbrooke Centre, Birmingham) to participate in the panel, to take place at the 2025 meeting of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) in Montreal in November.
  • ‘Continuities and Challenges: Women’s Politics and Activism in 1970s Britain’, with speakers Jessica White, Caitríona Beaumont, Ruth Davidson, Lyndsey Jenkins, and Laura Beers: to support members of the panel without alternative means of institutional financial support to participate in the panel, to take place at the 2025 meeting of the North American Conference on British Studies (NACBS) in Montreal in November. More about this project.

For all current open funding programmes, please see the Research Funding pages of the Society’s website.