The Price of History — my dissertation research

Over the past fifty years, funding agencies have come to occupy a central place in academic knowledge-production. As distributors of money, power, and prestige, funding agencies can nowadays change fields, careers, and institutions.

In this dissertation, The Price of History: Historical research and European funding regimes (1970-today), I analyze the growing importance of external funding for historians in Europe. More precisely, I address what the rise of European funding has meant for the discipline of history since the 1970s. Which kind of histories, historians, and historical institutions have been sponsored by the European Commission, the European Science Foundation, and the European Research Council? Who are the so-called “winners” and “losers” in this story? And which ideas about good and bad historical knowledge have been implicit in these funding decisions?

This dissertation lifts the lid on evaluations, evaluators, and decisions within European funding institutions. As such it provides a unique view into the behind the scenes of funding for historical research. Analyzing the contemporary equivalent of around 800 million EUR in project funding, this is the first comprehensive history of how European supranational institutions influenced what it means to be a professional historian today.

Background information

The dissertation was supervised by Berber Bevernage (Professor of Historical Theory, Ghent University) and Frederik Buylaert (Professor in Medieval and Early Modern History, Ghent University) and funded by the Ghent University BOF Fund and via the Flemish Research Council.

The dissertation was successfully defended on June 11, 2024, in Ghent, before an interdisciplinary jury:

  • Alex Csiszar (Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University)

  • Kathia Serrano Velarde (Professor for Political Sociology, Heidelberg University)

  • Kaat Wils (Full Professor of History, KU Leuven)

  • Gita Deneckere (Full Professor of History, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Ghent University)

  • Maarten Van Dyck (Professor in Philosophy, Ghent University)

I am at the moment reworking the dissertation into a book. You can contact me directly if you would like to get access to the full manuscript.