Call for Applications: University of Tübingen & University of Glasgow Fifth International PhD Summer School, 15-17 September 2026, Tübingen, Germany.

We are pleased to announce the return of the biannual University of Tübingen & University of Glasgow International PhD Summer School in Business & Economic History – which returns for its fifth iteration since its foundation in 2017. 

The University of Tübingen via its Initiative of Excellence provides funding for an intensive three-day event aimed at PhD students and early career researchers working on any topic that overlaps with the theme of the school (for more details, see “Further Notes for Applicants” below). Students need not be business or economic historians, but an historical engagement with the themes are essential. Students will be hosted in the historic town of Tübingen and will present, debate and discuss their works-in-progress with leading international scholars within a world-class university.

The school aims to provide doctoral students with an overview of relevant research and innovative tools and methodologies in the fields of business and economic history. It is the fifth event in this series organised jointly by the Seminar für Neuere Geschichte (University of Tübingen) and the Centre for Business History in Scotland (University of Glasgow).

The school will take the form of presentations from students (c.25 minutes) on an aspect of their research/PhD that pertains to the school’s themes, and workshops/masterclasses hosted by established experts in the field. The aims of the school are:

1. to deepen students’ understanding of current themes in historical research of crises and transformations in business/economic history (and how this can inform their own work);
2. to enhance research skills and employability through masterclasses on methods for researching and writing history;  
3. to explore the main theoretical underpinnings particular to business and economic history broadly and these topics specifically; and
4. to provide a welcoming and convivial environment in which students can discuss their research with leading scholars and peers. 

Students will benefit from the experience of academics from Tübingen, Glasgow and beyond. Funding will cover flights and/or trains (up to an agreed limit, to be reimbursed after the school), accommodation (shared twin rooms), lunches, and the conference meal for c.10 students. There will also be limited space for applicants who wish to self-fund or who have received funding from their own institution. Those interested in attending the summer school should e-mail the following documents to the organisers, Dr Daniel Menning and Dr Christopher Miller.

1. a brief CV (two pages maximum);
2. a summary of their PhD (two pages maximum); and
3. a title and abstract for their desired presentation topic, which should incorporate one or more major themes of the student’s PhD (one page maximum). A summary of a thesis as a whole is not acceptable.

While not required, applicants are strongly encouraged to submit with their materials an example of a work-in-progress (e.g., a draft chapter, article, or working paper), preferably in English, German, or French. Please note, however, that all presentations and discussions will be in English.
The deadline for applications is 5 June 2026 at 4pm UK time/5pm German time.  A maximum of 12 funded applicants will be selected and notified shortly afterwards.

This overview is only a guide. Students working on similar topics to those listed below, or in departments that are not primarily in economic or business history are welcome to apply, and encouraged to speak to Daniel Menning and/or Christopher Miller in the first instance. We have in the past welcomed students from a wide array of disciplines who may not necessarily think of themselves as business and economic historians – though a focus on history is essential.

Crises transform economies. But they have winners and losers. Those who innovate, can potentially reap huge benefits, those who do not, who create new products not desired, or adapt unsuccessfully face bankruptcy. What is true for individual businesses also applies to regional economies, especially – but not always - when sectors and clusters decline. In recent years, businesses have had to contend with many such crises and shocks. In the last decade in Europe alone, Brexit posed challenges to the EU and UK economic systems, the COVID-19 virus spread across the globe, war returned with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, US foreign policy – from tariffs to threats to annexe territory – seems to change monthly. While these have indeed been ‘shocking’ in their impact, slower and in some cases more fundamental issues such as climate change and energy transition, technological shifts from AI to transport, and demographic changes are unlikely to abate any time soon.

Not surprisingly, interest in economic crises and their effects on businesses has increased over the past few years, perhaps being spurred by the Global Financial Crisis. As historians, we would argue there is much to learn from history, for crises, technological change, and the effect of shocks – from wars to natural disasters – remain ripe for historical inquiry. This summer school therefore aims to better understand the linkages between businesses, government responses, and learning from crises through a combination of training masterclasses and a varied range of papers from PhDs and early career researchers working on the cutting edge of history and cognate disciplines.

Potential questions include: 

• What role do short-term crises (and their management) play in the successful adaption by some companies or sectors, while others either do not, or fail to continue adapting beyond certain points?
• How do firms adapt to change? Why do regions stop adapting? Particularly, can the role of institutional and firm-level learning from crises better explain why some industrial regions wither and lose competitiveness, and others sustain their position(s)?
• What lessons can history provide for contemporary businesses and industrial clusters in coping with change and developing resilience, and how can historians inform contemporary debates in management literature?

Research Background:

Business and economic history has been at the forefront of explaining some of the major changes in economies and societies – starting with the work of Alfred Chandler in the 1960s. (Chandler 1962, 1977). Nevertheless, with regards to the business history of crises and crisis management specifically, the literature is far less well developed. There are three reasons for this neglect. First, the tradition of business history for several decades, until comparatively recently, was to study the history of individual firms, or less frequently sectors. Indeed, business history was once considered an applied branch of economic history for scholars wishing to move beyond macroeconomic trends. The net effect has been that the literature on firms has been dominated by commissioned histories where the historian is paid by the (surviving) company and given use of its archives. While often extremely valuable, these studies can tend towards “rise and fall” narratives.

Second, where business histories have studied crises specifically, commissioned works can potentially have some further methodological problems. Most obviously, many of the firms survived until at least the point the history was commissioned. Thus, it is perhaps a case of selection bias towards success – or at the very least towards the largest and most important companies (Berghoff 2006). Related to this, the nature of commissioned studies has also drawn criticism: namely, that success is often attributed to management rather than luck, while episodes of failure are attributed to external or unpredictable factors outside of management control.

Third, the causes and aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 have generated many millions of pages of scholarship and commentary in the last decade, with the effect of prompting historians to draw comparisons with the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression. For instance, Werner Abelshauser (2009) is one of many interested in learning from economic crises explicitly through using the examples of 1931 and 2008. While not every crisis was like 2008 in cause, scale or scope, it is not necessarily a new phenomenon: the 2000 dot-com bubble was compared in much the same way. (Ojala and Uskali 2006). As a result, the stock market crash in 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression have become by far the most studied economic crisis in history, with renewed interest from 2008 (Tooze 2019), while the effect of the more regular, smaller scale, economic crises suffered by businesses before and after 1929 is largely neglected. The current economic conditions promise to bring new momentum to the study of businesses in times of larger and smaller economic difficulties, and we are therefore inviting PhD students and ECRs (PhD awarded no earlier than 2024) working on these topics in history departments, management schools, or other cognate disciplines to submit proposals for the summer school.