The Universities of Heidelberg, Basel and Sydney are proud to announce the International Research Award in Global History, to be awarded for the first time in 2015. The successful applicant will receive up to €10,000 towards the organization of an international symposium on a topic of his/her choice at one of the participating institutions.
Global History is still a comparatively young research field. Over the last two decades it has emerged as an important sub-discipline in the broader field of historical research, encompassing a wide range of methodological and thematic approaches, including transnational, international and world history. The International Research Award in Global History and the award symposium has been initiated jointly by some of the leading researchers in the field, in order to identify innovative young researchers in this broad field. The award will further their work by giving them the intellectual freedom and the financial means to bring together scholars from all over the world to engage with a topic of their own choice and design. Our aim is to make the scholarly work of the awardee visible in the scientific community and put them in closer contact with established colleagues in their field. Beyond supporting the research and academic networks of the prize-winning scholar, the award symposium will contribute to the field’s ability to critically reflect and intellectually replenish itself. The award also aims to reach out to an academic public beyond the sub-discipline of global history and provide a broader stage for the pioneering research currently undertaken in the field.
The purse of up to €10,000 attached to the award will be used to host an international symposium on a topic proposed by the successful applicant. In 2015, the symposium will take place at Heidelberg University in Germany, on 4-5 December. It will be the awardee’s responsibility to organize the panels and invite the speakers for the symposium. Chairs and discussants will come from the initiating institutions at Basel, Heidelberg and Sydney and the award jury. Organizational support will be available.
The International Research Award in Global History is jointly advertised by the Department of History and the Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context’ at Heidelberg University (Roland Wenzlhuemer), the Institute for European Global Studies at the University of Basel (Madeleine Herren-Oesch) and the Laureate Research Program in International History at the University of Sydney (Glenda Sluga). The award jury will be comprized of the organizers, as well as Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam), Tamson Pietsch (Brunel/Sydney) and Peer Vries (Vienna).
Typically, applicants will have recently completed their doctoral studies and be in the early stages of their postdoctoral career in History. However, a doctorate is not a formal requirement. Applicants should submit a cover letter explaining their interest in the award (max. 2 pages), an academic CV and their proposal for the award symposium (detailing the topic, a tentative list of participants and a preliminary budget, max. 5 pages) electronically to susanne.hohler@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de (as one PDF file) by 30 November 2014.