Each year the Royal Historical Society (RHS) organises visits to history departments at UK universities. Visits are an opportunity for historians and RHS Council members to discuss the work of a department/School as well as wider disciplinary matters, and to conclude the event with a public lecture.
The Society now invites applications from colleagues in UK history departments to host a collaborative meeting and lecture in 2025. The closing date for submissions is Friday 29 November 2024.
If you would like to host a Visit in 2025, please submit your request via the Society’s online applications portal.
About RHS Visits
The Society’s Visits are opportunities for history departments to come together with RHS Council members and (where feasible and/or desired) with other history departments in the region. They offer the opportunity for conversation on matters relating to the discipline and profession, as well as to host a public lecture with an external speaker chosen (usually) by the host department.
Visits enable the RHS President and councillors to learn more about a particular department, and how the Society can best support historians at this time. Visits also provide an opportunity for the historians of a university, across all career stages and departments, to meet together outside their usual institutional frameworks. They offer the potential for historians working across several departments and/or institutions to come together to discuss our shared interests. Visits may also comprise meetings between the Society’s Council and university senior managers, if welcome.
Visits include time for informal discussions with colleagues and RHS representatives and conclude with an early evening lecture hosted by the department and open to all. Speakers are usually chosen by members of the department. In turn, the Society will pay for the speaker’s travel and accommodation (if required). The RHS will also make a contribution towards a closing dinner for the speaker and members of the department.
Applying to host a Visit in 2025
Applications to host a Visit in 2025 are now welcome. We invite applications from individual departments; from groups of departments in regions with several universities; as well as from smaller cohorts of historians working outside a formal department. Visits involving more than one department are good opportunities to reconnect with or meet new colleagues, and to discuss teaching and research in regional contexts.
Visits are usually held in the spring and autumn. There are no fixed dates and the Society will work with a department to find the best time for a session. Recent visits in 2023-24 have been to the universities of Edge Hill, Northampton, Kent and Canterbury Christ Church, the Highlands & Islands, Hertfordshire, York and York St John, and Brunel.
If you would like to host a Visit in 2025, please submit your request via the Society’s online applications portal.
Applications for a 2025 Visit will close on Friday 29 November 2024, with decisions made shortly after this date.
If you would like to discuss options for a Visit, please contact the Society’s President, marking your email ‘RHS Visit’: president@royalhistsoc.org.
HEADER IMAGE: Willem Blaeu’s ‘Britannia Prout’ 1645, detail, iStock.