Agenda
Call for abstracts ESTER RDC (University of Seville, 3-5 November 2025) – deadline 1 July 2025
On 3 to 5 November 2025 the 2025 edition of the ESTER Research Design Course (RDC) will be held. This year’s edition will be hosted by the University of Seville under the guidance of Dr Germán Jiménez Montes (photo). The N.W. Posthumus Institute (as secretariat of the ESTER Network) and the local organisers of the University of Seville welcome abstracts for this RDC.
The Research Design Course (RDC) is a format promoted by ESTER (The European graduate School for Training in Economic and Social Historical Research, a European platform for postgraduate teaching involving over 60 universities throughout Europe) since the late 1990s. The RDC assists candidates in setting up a high quality and well-designed plan for their dissertation under the guidance of a team of senior researchers and research design specialists whose task it is to provide comments and feedback. Thus, the RDC is not a “course” in which an instructor will give a lecture or that you will discuss historical theories in a seminar setting. Instead, it is focused on presentations of individual projects and the ensuing discussions on how to improve them.
Therefore, selected participants will be asked to write a paper in which the design of your research will be discussed. The aim of this methodological reflection is to investigate the scientific procedures that historians use to reach scientific explanations and to combine all analytical elements into a synthetic and coherent historical account. In this paper, the participant will also prepare a detailed work plan for the dissertation.
Applications (400-800 words) should be submitted ultimately 1 July 2025 via the online application form. Please note that in case a selection between suitable applications is needed, PhDs currently enlisted in the PhD Training Programme of the N.W. Posthumus Institute will have priority.
