German History Society Annual Conference 2026

University of Stirling
Thursday 3 September – Saturday 5 September 2025

The German History Society in the UK and Ireland, which publishes the journal German History, is now inviting proposals for its seventeenth Annual Conference. The 2025 conference will be hosted by the University of Stirling. Confirmed keynote speakers are Maria Alexopoulou, John Breuilly and Len Scales. Our local organiser, Nikolaos Papadogiannis, has also organised a ceilidh for us!

The Society invites historians of Germany from all parts of the world to submit panel proposals on their research topics in German history broadly conceived, including the history of Germany and the German-speaking world in its broadest global context, from the medieval period to the present day. Panels will last 90 minutes and should have three speakers and a chair. Each paper should be no longer than 20 minutes.

Proposals for round-table format panels, and for panels that address specific methodological problems, issues of source criticism, or challenges in public history and education in the field of German history, are welcome, as are proposals for panels whose individual papers cover differing historical periods. These should involve three or four speakers and a chair, and should last 90 minutes, with each paper lasting 10–20 minutes, depending on the number of speakers.

Proposals for individual papers will also be accepted, with the proviso that the conference organisers will seek to group individual papers into panels of three. Individual papers should last no longer than 20 minutes.

The deadline for proposals is Tuesday 14 April 2025. The Society will select proposals and aim to inform applicants by mid-May 2025.

Postgraduate students are explicitly encouraged to participate in panels or to submit their own panel proposals or individual papers. The annual conference is intended to offer a friendly, constructive environment in which to present both completed work and work in progress to a specialist audience. There will be a conference dinner open to all members.

Please note that panellists/individual presenters will have to bear the costs of the dinner, travel and accommodation themselves. Some bursaries will be available for postgraduate students; those presenting papers will receive preference for funding. Information on applying for postgraduate bursaries is available on the German History Society website here.

The conference is free for members of the German History Society. There will be a modest conference fee of £25 (waged) and £8 (unwaged) for delegates who are not members of the German History Society. For details on how to join the German History Society (which also offers additional benefits, including the right to apply for our various grant schemes and a free subscription to the society’s journal, German History), see here.

Panel proposals: please send one copy of the panel proposal, including the title of the panel, name of chair, names of speakers and their institutional affiliation (if applicable), overall description of panel, and brief abstracts of the three papers. The entire proposal should be no longer than two pages.

Round-table proposals/proposals for panels on specific methodological problems, issues of source criticism, or challenges in public history/education: Rather than including individual abstracts, these should provide a longer overall description, plus name of chair and names of speakers and their institutional affiliation. Again, they should be no longer than two pages.

Individual proposals: These should include the title of the paper, institutional affiliation of the speaker and an abstract. They should be no longer than one page.

All proposals should be sent in electronic format to the Secretary of the German History Society at [email protected]

Photo: Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA-4.0