Participants of the conference. Photo: Greta Darkow

Lund York Bielefeld - Conference report:

At the BGHS there are many possibilities for transnational work. An example of this is the Bielefeld-Lund-York conference, which took place this year from 11 to 13 June. Here you can read what it is all about and how participants experienced the conference.

Since 2016 the Department of History and the BGHS cooperate with the National Graduate School of History at Lund University, Sweden, and the PhD Program in History at the University of York, United Kingdom, in doctoral training. A joint PhD conference is held every year and hosted by the partner institutions in turn.

Within the conference the partners aim to support PhD students in creating and sustaining cross-border networks, and to foster commu-nication between young researchers in Europe. The goal of the conference is to practice the short and precise oral presentation of projects in English.

Mehran Haji Mohammadian tells us how he remembers the conference:

"The conference was great! Absolutely! As a student of sociology, I was really excited by the numerous details that historians discussed. The doctoral projects that for at least three years focus on Medals, Intarsia or under the microscope in the seventeenth century! Research about sleep! Or Social Networks in an Early Modern Town. All of them! Before the conference, I had thought historians and sociologists do the same research. But not actually! We normally do not go into this level of details. Many thanks historians."

Maja-Lisa Müller reports positive impressions as well:

"The PhD-Conference Lund/York/Bielefeld has been an overall great experience. As a PhD student in the newly established study programme "Image Science and Art History" it was exciting to connect with other doctoral students in the field and learn about differences and similarities in academic culture. I have profited a lot from the exchange of ideas among the students as well as the valuable advice given by the professors and I'm looking forward to future projects with our partner universities Lund and York."

And Anastasia Zaplatina adds:

"The conference exceeded all my expectations. I have learned a lot from each panel and received a lot of inspiration from each presentation. In particular, I want to notice the workshop prepared by Dr. Chris Renwick which was dedicated to the interdisciplinary approach in social sciences. During the workshop we discussed the ongoing process of changing of borders between disciplines, the impact of interdisciplinary approach on publishing and searching for funding. I am very grateful to all the organizers and participants for the amazing experience."

We thank everyone for joining!

Further Information:

• About the Desk Exchange from last year