On 18 February, members of the Society’s Council visited historians at Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Sheffield in the first in the 2026 programme of visits to universities across the UK. This joint meeting was an opportunity to learn more about historical studies at both institutions; to discuss shared priorities and concerns; and to consider how the Society can best support the work of historians across a range of career stages.
Across a series of panels, participants discussed a wide range of concerns that will be common to many at this time: student enrolments; changes and cuts to PhD funding; the handling of institutional restructures; the training of researchers to undertake careers outside higher education; and the support of historians at mid-career and at the point at which academic careers end, be this through retirement or abruptly as part of enforced restructuring.
The Sheffield visit also brought together history school teachers and curators from the region. Panels considered the drop off of history students between A-Level, where our subject remains popular, and at university where choosing history is considered by some as limiting later career options. Members of the RHS Council also discussed findings of the Society’s 2024 briefing, The Value of History, which refutes these concerns with reference to employment data for history graduates.
This session also discussed closer working — between historians in schools and higher education, as well as in the field of history teacher training — to encourage more students to continue with the subject. Sessions in turn considered closer working between institutions in the same city, the benefits of this, and how barriers to shared experience as historians are best overcome.
The day concluded with a public lecture given by our guest speaker Professor David Stack from the University of Reading.
David’s lecture — ‘History and Well-being: a Historian’s Perspective’ — explored histories of well-being and the potential contribution of historical study for fostering well-being as personal and societal development and understanding. In the lecture, David argued for history’s unique contribution, both to the concept and the practice of well-being.
Our great thanks to David for his excellent lecture, and to Professor Matthew Stibbe (Sheffield Hallam) and Professors Adrian Bingham and Julie Gottlieb (Sheffield) for organising the visit and their welcome. Our thanks also to the many RHS Fellows and Members who attended David’s lecture and the reception which followed this.
Royal Historical Society visits in 2026
The Society’s next visit is to historians at Aberystwyth University (Wednesday 13 May), where our guest lecturer is Professor Miri Rubin (Queen Mary, University of London) who will speak on ‘Black/Beautiful: Meanings of Blackness in a Biblical Verse’.
RHS visits later this year will be to the University of Strathclyde (October) and the universities of the West of England / Bristol in December.
Recent visits in late 2025 include to the universities of Aberdeen and Suffolk, and a joint meeting with historians from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and UCL’s Institute of Education.