The FAHSS Research Fellows Award supported Dr Julia Zimmermann in organising a workshop event ‘Hidden Connections: Eastern Europe through a Comparative Lens’, with co-organisers Prof. Marvin Suesse, Prof. Vitaliia Yaremko, both in the Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin. The event was run in collaboration with the WEast network, which includes Stefan Nikolic (Loughborough University), Mikolaj Malinowski (Groningen), and Tamas Vonyo (Bocconi). The event was held from 13-14 December 2024 at Trinity College Dublin.
The Faculty Research Fellows Award supports Research Fellows in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to promote their career development as independent researchers through Individual awards of up to €1,500. Examples of funding support include attendance at conferences, organisation of conferences, training in a particular skill, developing publications etc.
‘Hidden Connections: Eastern Europe through a Comparative Lens’ Workshop
The economic history of Eastern Europe is often perceived as isolated or peripheral. This workshop aimed to challenge that notion by emphasizing the historical connections between Eastern and Western Europe and other global regions. It focused on the transnational circulation of people, goods, ideas, techniques, diseases, and institutions, highlighting innovative research using new archival data, advanced microdata, and causal analysis techniques. The workshop celebrated interdisciplinary approaches that redefine our understanding of Europe's shared economic, industrial, ideological, and political past.
The FAHSS Research Fellows Award 2023-24 enabled the organization of the WEast 2024 Dublin Workshop, a premier event for economic history and historical political economy research on Eastern, Central, and Southeastern Europe. WEast, affiliated with the European Historical Economics Society (EHES), has hosted previous workshops at leading institutions like Humboldt University Berlin, the University of Vienna, and UCL. It strategically positioned itself to open the 2024 conference season, setting the stage for the World Economic History Congress in Lund, Sweden, in August 2025.
The workshop brought together a stellar lineup of 22 participants, including senior researchers and emerging scholars, fostering the development of new research areas and professional networks. A highlight of the event was the keynote speech by Sascha Becker from Warwick University on “Religion and Development: Past, Present, and Future.”
The event achieved gender balance and included a mix of established and emerging scholars, making it a key milestone for advancing the economic history of Eastern Europe within TCD’s department of economics and CEPH and also showcasing the multidisciplinary research on Eastern Europe in different disciplines.
A PDF of the Hidden Connections event programme is available (PDF 153 kb).
For further information please email:
- Julia Zimmermann at jzimmerm@clio.uc3m.es (Currently Visiting Professor in Economic History in the Social Sciences department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).
- Marvin Suesse at marvin.suesse@tcd.ie.
- Vitaliia Yaremko at vyaremko@tcd.ie.
Please see also Julia's LinkedIn and BlueSky profiles.
Images from the event:
