In collaboration with the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) the project team is organising a symposium that will explore the links between skilled migration and scientific and technological innovation across the premodern and early modern worlds.

In the summer of 2023 Felicia spent a week in Antwerp for archival research.

In July, Floris went to Japan to conduct research for the project and in particular to further the outputs the project has planned.

In late July, Felicia, Rémi and Floris travelled the Netherlands to take part in the Seventh European Congress on World and Global History 2023 in The Hague

On Monday May 22nd Floris and Oliver went to the Oriental Museum in Durham to run the second of our teacher training sessions.

economists that explicitly seeks to set and shape a new research agenda on the link between migration and innovation. The workshop presented findings across different subfields and topics which, together with our project research as a historical framework, will be drawn together into a publication, forthcoming with E Elgar, that will be accessible to a wide audience of undergraduate and graduate students across economics and the social sciences.

From the 12th to the 15th of April, Rémi and Felicia took part in the European Social Science History Conference 2023, in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Felicia presented at a workshop organised by Steve Pincus and Sunit Singh from the University of Chicago which brought together a select group of scholars interested in reopening central questions about the formation of the British empire in India.

The article “Migration and innovation in early modern Islamic societies. The case for firearms”, has been published this month.

On Tuesday March 14 Felicia, Rémi and Floris went to the Oriental Museum in Durham in order to run a teacher training day for Durham University School for Education’s PGCE students as part of a continued collaboration with the University’s Library and Collections Learning and Engagement team.

In January 2023 Felicia travelled to Austria, for archival research in Vienna and the conference “Decentring Mercantilism” at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz.

Date: 24th and 25th JULY, 2023

Place: ONLINE

On a foggy autumnal morning, the project team crammed into Oliver’s small car and set off to the Bowes Museum.

I travelled to Sunderland on a rainy bonfire night to spend a day making glass marbles at the National Glass Centre. After arriving late due to my poor time management, we met the artist-teacher Zoe Garner (https://www.zoegarner.co.uk/home). We were taken backstage into the workshop and after a health and safety brief, we were let loose on the glass and blowtorches.

11-12 October saw the annual UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Conference that took place in person for the first time since 2019. Two very intense days at the Hilton in Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre were filled with plenary sessions, workshops, and networking amongst the Fellows from the different cohorts during workshops and poster sessions.

On a sunny Autumn Thursday in early October, Oliver made the trip to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. After getting lost in the vast museum galleries, Oliver eventually found his way to the conference he was attending. The Association of the History of Glass, along with the Victoria and Albert Museum, hosted a conference titled “Celebrating the birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass”.

In September Felicia travelled to the Netherlands to take part in a one-day workshop organised by Prof Catia Antunes (Leiden) and Dr Edmond Smith (Manchester). As they explained: “Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship sit, often uncomfortably, at the heart of many historical traditions interested in imperial expansion, economic development or technological change.

In May, and September 2022, Rémi undertook fieldwork in Venice to look at documents and objects related to firearm technologies in the Mediterranean world, especially in the Ottoman empire. In its long history, Venice was the main interlocutor of the Ottomans. Intense conflicts, trade relations and diplomatic exchanges produced vast archival holdings.

On a sunny Autumn Thursday in early October, Oliver made the trip to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum. After getting lost in the vast museum galleries, Oliver eventually found his way to the conference he was attending. The Association of the History of Glass, along with the Victoria and Albert Museum, hosted a conference titled “Celebrating the birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass”.

In July 2022 Felicia met with the Bowes’ new textiles’ curator, Rachel Whitworth. They wandered through the Bowes’ exciting collections and displays and discussed how the museum and project might collaborate to further the museum’s founders’, Josephine and John Bowes’…