European Society for Environmental History

European Society for Environmental History
Name	European Society for Environmental History
Founded	1999
Type	Learned society
Region served	Europe

Contents

European Society for Environmental History The European Society for Environmental History fosters research on the interactions between humans and the natural environment across Europe, connecting scholars working on topics related to landscapes, biodiversity, urban ecology, agriculture, industry, and climate. The Society links historians based at institutions such as University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Paris, University of Berlin, and University of Rome with researchers affiliated to museums like the Natural History Museum, London, archives such as the National Archives (United Kingdom), and centers including the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Rachel Carson Center. It engages with policy actors in bodies like the European Commission, conservation organizations including World Wildlife Fund, and networks such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

History

The Society emerged in the aftermath of conferences that gathered historians from universities including Humboldt University of Berlin, Università di Bologna, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Uppsala University and research institutes such as the Institute of Historical Research and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Early meetings involved figures associated with projects at the International Institute of Social History, the European University Institute, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and drew on precedents set by the American Society for Environmental History and the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology. Founding members included scholars who had published with presses like Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Routledge, and who collaborated with centers such as the Smithsonian Institution, the British Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The Society’s formation paralleled the growth of environmental history in departments at Columbia University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan, while engaging with archival collections from institutions such as the Vatican Archives and the State Historical Museum, Moscow.

The Society promotes comparative research spanning regions from the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles to the Balkans, the Baltic States, and the Nordic countries, encouraging studies that intersect with case studies on the Rhine, the Danube, the Mediterranean Sea, and Arctic environments around Svalbard. It supports interdisciplinary connections with scholars at the European Space Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and with cultural institutions like the Museum of Natural History, Paris and the V&A Museum. Activities link grant holders at the European Research Council and recipients of awards from the Leverhulme Trust, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and the Guggenheim Foundation. The Society also liaises with NGOs such as Greenpeace and policy fora including the United Nations Environment Programme and the Bern Convention.

Annual and biennial conferences have been hosted at venues including Trinity College Dublin, Leiden University, University of Barcelona, Jagiellonian University, Charles University, University of Helsinki, KU Leuven, and University of Warsaw. The Society has organized thematic symposia on topics tied to the Little Ice Age, industrialization along the Rhine–Ruhr, colonial environmental legacies in Algeria and India, maritime histories of the North Sea and the Black Sea, forest histories in the Carpathians and the Taiga, and urban environmental change in cities like Paris, Vienna, Lisbon, Athens, and Istanbul. Keynote speakers have included authors published on topics relating to Charles Darwin, the Industrial Revolution, and the Green Revolution and have engaged with archives such as the British Antarctic Survey and repositories like the Finnish National Archives.

The Society supports publication outlets that include edited volumes with Bloomsbury Publishing, special issues in journals such as Environmental History, Global Environment, Ecozon@, Journal of Historical Geography, Agricultural History Review, International Review of Environmental History (fictional placeholder not linked) and collaborations with university presses at Edinburgh University Press and Manchester University Press. Members publish monographs on themes from wetland reclamation in the Netherlands to sheep pastoralism in Scotland, and articles dealing with topics such as pesticide use in France, mining in Galicia (Spain), fisheries in Norway, and forestry in Poland. The Society promotes open-access initiatives and works with repositories including the Digital Public Library of America and the European Open Science Cloud.

The Society awards travel grants and bursaries for early-career researchers connected to institutions like Trinity College Cambridge, Sciences Po, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Pompeu Fabra University. It partners with funding bodies such as the European Research Council, the British Academy, the Austrian Science Fund, and national research councils like the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the German Research Foundation. Prizes recognize outstanding articles and doctoral theses on environmental history involving case studies from regions including Catalonia, Brittany, Silesia, Sardinia, Corsica, and Transylvania.

Membership draws scholars affiliated with universities such as Heriot-Watt University, University of Edinburgh, University of St Andrews, University of Siena, University of Granada, and University of Ljubljana as well as curators from institutions like the Natural History Museum of Vienna and archivists at the Austrian State Archives. Governance follows a council elected by members with officers who have held positions at the European University Institute, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of Göttingen, and the University of Copenhagen. The Society collaborates with networks including the European Association for Environmental History (as a conceptual peer), the International Consortium of Environmental Historians, regional Centres for Conservation such as IUCN Regional Office for Europe, and research clusters funded by the Horizon 2020 programme.