Projects - History research
History researchers at the University of Hertfordshire undertake a wide range of innovative projects.
Ground-breaking research
We collaborate with national and international partners and are successful in winning significant external research funding.
We welcome MA by Research and PhD applications in these areas.
Find out more about how to apply for a PhD or Masters in History research.
Digital history
Tim Hitchcock has established a long-tern collaboration with Robert Shoemaker at the University of Sheffield.
He also partners with the Open University and the Institute of Historical Research; and has been supported by 9 major grants over the last 10 years by the AHRC, ESRC and JISC.
These collaborations have resulted in the creation of a suite of websites and resources including:
With the support of a 'Digging into Data' award, and international collaborations with George Mason University, the University of Alberta, and with William Turkel at the University of Western Ontario, Hitchcock has created new text mining methodologies for historical purposes, and the application of API architectures to existing resources.
Explore our latest developments in digital history.
Financial history
British Museum
Dr Anne Murphy is collaborating with Dr Catherine Eagleton of the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum.
This collaboration has so far resulted in two successful AHRC collaborative doctoral awards.
The first, held by Jack Mockford, funds a project exploring the forgery of paper money at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.
The second studentship will be a study of coining and coiners over the long 18th century.
European State Finance Database
The European State Finance Database (ESFDB) makes data on European fiscal history across the medieval, early modern and modern periods available free of charge to all users.
Originally established by Rev Prof Richard Bonney at the University of Leicester, the project is now managed by Anne Murphy (University of Hertfordshire) and Dr D’Maris Coffman (Centre for Financial History, Newnham College, University of Cambridge).
Spinning in the age of the spinning wheel
Professor John Styles, Dr David Celetti and Alice Dolan are undertaking a major international project, ‘Spinning in the Era of the Spinning Wheel, 1440-1800’.
The project is supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant.
It aims to provide a comprehensive history of hand spinning in England between 1400 and 1800, treating it as a practice that was at one and the same time material, technological, economic, commercial, legal, cultural, gendered, and global.
Harnessing the power of the criminal corpse
'Harnessing the power of the criminal corpse' is an inter-disciplinary project, awarded £945,000 by the Wellcome Trust.
It is a joint collaboration between researchers at the Universities of Hertfordshire and Leicester, including Professor Owen Davies and Dr Francesca Matteoni.
The project explores how social and symbolic power, medicinal and curative power, judicial power and the power of scientific knowledge were all negotiated through the criminal corpse, which is conceptually located at the overlap between several different traditions of study.
It provides a prism through which wider historical ideas about bodies, medicine, belief, knowledge and power can be developed.
History of popular protest
Funded by grants from History Workshop Journal and the Economic History Society, Dr Katrina Navickas runs a network, ‘New Approaches to the History of Popular Protest’.
The network brings together historians, geographers and sociologists from across the UK and abroad interested in rethinking the history of popular protest and social movements.
Events include two day-workshops at the University of Hertfordshire and the University of the West England, and a forthcoming workshop at the University of Gloucestershire.