Agenda
Call for abstracts ESTER RDC 2026 (KU Leuven, Belgium, 24-28 October 2026) – deadline abstracts
On 26 to 28 October 2026 the 2026 edition of the ESTER Research Design Course (RDC) will be held. This year’s edition will be hosted by the KU Leuven under the guidance of Maïka De Keyzer (photo), head of the Medieval History Research Group at KU Leuven. The N.W. Posthumus Institute (as secretariat of the ESTER Network) and the local organisers of KU Leuven Seville welcome abstracts for this RDC.
The Research Design Course 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.
Candidates wishing to participate are requested to send in their application and abstract no later than 15 June 2026 via the registration form (see button below).
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.
