The runner up of the #PollardPrize 2025 is Niall Gray for his paper on '“The Burns Connection”: the Scotland-USSR Society and Cold War cultural diplomacy'. Congratulations to our winners and thanks to @Oxfordacademic.bsky.social for sponsoring the prize!

Congratulations to @berrypillot.bsky.social for winning the #PollardPrize 2025! Berry's paper 'No Place to be a Child? The Persistence and Peculiarities of Children’s Play during the Second World War in London and Liverpool' will be published in Historical Research @oxfordacademic.bsky.social

The Curriers' Prize is now open! Submit your best unpublished essay on any aspect of London's history, and you could get a £1,000 award! Full details: 👇 w ww.history.ac.uk/funding/awards-bursaries-prizes/curriers-prize

IHR Director Professor Claire Langhamer @clairelanghamer.bsky.social has written about today’s History Day #histday25 here at Senate House, and how it reflects the crucial work of @ihr.bsky.social in supporting historical research in all its forms. Read more here! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

What if friendship were understood not just on an individual, personal level, but as something political – a radical practice capable of upending hierarchies and producing revolutionary social change? Laura C. Forster and Joel White reflect on radical friendship and everyday solidarities.

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

The fine UK east coast city of Kingston upon Hull #Yorkshire is in the good news bracket today having made Nat Geo's cut for one of the top 25 global destinations in 2026 - & it is worth a visit. Here's the cover to the 1931 Official Guide #Hull ↘️ flic.kr/p/2rB53Kv

The Society now invites applications for its Workshop Grants programme 2026: bit.ly/4oPyUdZ Grants provide funding for groups of historians to come together for a day event to work collaboratively on a shared project. Closing date for applications: Friday 23 January 2026 #Skystorians

The recording of the @ihr.bsky.social Creighton Lecture (not a lecture) 2025 is now available online. Me in conversation with brilliant poet Hannah Lowe, chaired by @clairelanghamer.bsky.social, on 'Doing #History with #Poetry'. #AHistoryOfEnglandIn25Poems www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

@ihr.bsky.social @clairelanghamer.bsky.social @ihrwomen.bsky.social @ihrscb.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... @emilyrobinson.bsky.social @tricksterprince.bsky.social

We're excited to announce the call for papers for #MBS26, the next Modern British Studies conference, at Birmingham in June 2026. We'll be launching the #MBS Association at this event, to support further regular conferences in Modern British Studies. www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

'The British Library...has taken years to recover from a major cyberattack that disrupted its services and restricted access to its collections. The walkout is set to take from 27 October to 9 November, coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the cyberattack.'

Now open: call for the Royal Historical Society's First Book and Early Career Article Prizes, 2026. Eligible titles, published in 2025, may be submitted by the author before the closing date of 15 December. Further details and how to apply: bit.ly/3KnR47v #Skystorians

For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research. Reposts welcomed.

Please join us for our inaugural seminar of the term in the IHR and online. Register: tinyurl.com/298ssvkr @ihr.bsky.social @clairelanghamer.bsky.social @dralanagharris.bsky.social @carmenmangion.bsky.social @lauragowing.bsky.social @harkaway1.bsky.social @womenshistoryrev.bsky.social

The IHR Women's History seminar programme for autumn 2025: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/seminars/womens-history is now available. We look forward to seeing you soon! @clairelanghamer.bsky.social @carmenmangion.bsky.social @lauragowing.bsky.social @dralanagharris.bsky.social @ihr.bsky.social

We’re pleased to be able to share the recording of our online seminar @ihr.bsky.social on 17 September which reflected on what we can learn from the history of equal pay legislation, with the help of Sally Brett and Megan Fisher. youtu.be/KRDzkWi14cE

We too are very excited for the publication of the latest #OpenAccess book in our #NewHistoricalPerspectives series, Atlantic Isles by @grod.bsky.social! Published with the @ihr.bsky.social and @royalhistsoc.org with funding from @jisc.bsky.social. Read more: uolpress.co.uk/book/atlanti...

'Our public libraries are free in three critical senses. Firstly, they cost nothing to join and to use. Secondly, they are open to all in our communities. We must also add a third concept of freedom: the freedom to read – to engage, without restraint, a diversity of knowledge and opinion'.

RHS Funding opportunity: Postgraduate and Early Career Research Support Grants. Grants of up to £1000 for graduate and early career historians to undertake research projects bit.ly/4nWLNlI Closing date for the next round: 5 December 2025

'University of Sussex leader Sasha Roseneil said she felt opposition to higher education was often grounded in an explicit rejection of the expansion of access that has taken place in recent decades.' 1/2

Also published this week in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' "Us and Them: Disability Ethics, Oral History and Inclusive Praxis in the Reuse of Asylum Photography", by Alana Harris & Laura Mitchison bit.ly/4gH9e0f What are the ethics of historical research using asylum photography?

🎉The call for participation for #HAP26 is now open! Alongside @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy, @royalhistsoc.org & @unisheffieldlib.bsky.social we invite you to explore the theme 'Shaping Societies, Improving Lives: The Impact of Archives and Historical Research'. Apply today: bit.ly/46VfEVY

We’re delighted to publish a new Policy Paper today by Jonathan Moss & @emilyrobinson.bsky.social. They suggest that Mass Observation @massobsarchive.bsky.social - founded in the 1930s - can help us understand the reasons behind contemporary voter apathy. historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

I really cannot recommend this more highly - from my brilliant IHR colleague @cathamclarke.bsky.social Catch her on Start the Week today too! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Very much this. The IHR really is open to everyone and this includes our common room and our library as well as our wonderful seminars. All free, all welcome!

Welcome IHR @tudorstuartseminar.bsky.social! You can find them and our other projects, seminars and people in our starter pack go.bsky.app/2AUxmcA Let me know if we've missed anyone.

Interested in the latest research around the potential of planetary histories? Join the @ihr.bsky.social seminar series organised by our own Glenda Sluga and Giorgio Riello with Andrew Fitzmaurice @qmul.bsky.social and Thomas Simpson @warwickuni.bsky.social 👉 loom.ly/I0kI0cg 📅 Starting 9 October!

Join us next Wednesday for our first seminar of this year with @thegozfather.bsky.social discussing Lord Mansfield’s judgement on the Chevalier d’Eon (register via this link www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...) Check out the following clip to receive a sneak peak! www.tiktok.com/@long18thcen...

One week left to apply 📅 We’re hiring for a Research Officer and a Lead Researcher. Are you passionate about conducting qualitative research on poverty and financial hardship? Do you have a strong commitment to ethical and inclusive research? Apply here: www.jrf.org.uk/careers.

As part of our Network Northern Ireland 2025 event @mauricejcasey.com will be hosting our latest History Open Mic Night w/ special guests at The Pavillion pub in Belfast. Open to all.

I was invited to write a post for the @ihr.bsky.social blog about #AHistoryOfEnglandIn25Poems. 'The book tells a story about how England has been shaped over the centuries - and, between the lines, I think it tells a story about my working life here at the IHR...' blog.history.ac.uk/2025/09/a-hi...

Wonderful launch this evening at @ihr.bsky.social of ‘A History of England in 25 Poems’ @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social by @cathamclarke.bsky.social. Catherine was discussing the book with the poet Hannah Lowe, and the discussion was chaired by IHR director @clairelanghamer.bsky.social.

I had a blast speaking with Izzy Conn for her brilliant @ihr.bsky.social podcast, Leading Labour, about former Labour party leader John Smith. I am also delighted and honoured to share the (digital) platform with several experts on his leadership. open.spotify.com/episode/2oMa...

Happy to share the launch of the new, hybrid African History Seminar @ihr.bsky.social . Check out our fall program here: history.ac.uk/news-events/... If you're in London and want to present new research on Africa, get in touch!

Just a reminder that in the midst of waves of anti-migrant, anti-refugee and anti-asylum-seeker rhetoric and activism, there are also many charities working quietly, stoically and hard to fuel a better conversation and a better future. Actively supporting them makes a difference.

This is not only a serious issue for historians and not only a serious issue for academics (although it is that). It's a development that's also deleterious for the GLAM sector, for example, and part of a much larger trend nationally and internationally to restrict and dismantle access to archives.

Access to the IHR from 18-15 August. The Malet Street and Russell Square entrances will be closed due to resurfacing works. During this period, the temporary entrance to access Senate House will be via Montague Place and from SOAS North block for the IHR.

The British Academy's new School Indicators dashboard is now live. It shows long-term uptake trends in subject entries across the UK’s most commonly taken secondary and post-16 qualifications (GCSE, A Level, National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher) for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. 1/2

'Put simply, we have a really strange system in higher education, where nobody admits how much things actually cost, nobody admits who’s paying for what, research is kept alive on the toil and goodwill of underpaid academics....'

New material on British History Online! The Victoria County History of Staffordshire, volume 6: www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/v... #History

And some context for this first volume of a new programme of digital publication of Victoria County Histories: blog.history.ac.uk/2025/07/digi... #History

'The number of student-initiated PhD scholarships funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is set to fall by 60 per cent when new doctoral training arrangements come into effect next year, new figures show.' 1/3

Of interest to historians. Full time, permanent, £33,000 to £37,000, at Kew. 'The National Archives is looking for two Records Specialist to join our Collections Expertise & Engagement department, where we use our expert knowledge to inspire audiences and make them differently about archives.'

Very much looking forward to this conversation - Catherine’s book is extraordinary!

The Society is very pleased to announce the winners of its 2025 Early Career Article and First Book Prizes bit.ly/3GqSCfk This year's recipients are Laura Flannigan, William Ross Jones, Michaela Kalcher, and Jules Skotnes-Brown for work published in 2024. Our congratulations to all #Skystorians

I highly recommend the 'Interviews with Historians' exhibition @ihr.bsky.social, launching the wonderful resource www.history.ac.uk/library-digi.... Fascinating insights into how #historians do #history + some gorgeous media archaeology! Congrats to @ihrlibrary.bsky.social colleagues & all involved.