OCIH Funding

The Oxford Centre for Intellectual History offers modest funding support for events organised by graduate students or Early Career Researchers based at the University of Oxford.

Eligible events will ordinarily meet the following criteria:

· they fall significantly within the broad scope of intellectual history, the history of ideas, or political thought;

· they are held in Oxford, or otherwise involve significant Oxford student presence and participation;

· they are open to any Oxford member to attend.

The Centre can award up to £250. Funding may be used to support costs associated with graduate-led seminars and workshops, graduate reading groups, special events, and graduate- or ECR-organised conferences. The Centre is happy to offer partial funding to applicants who have applied to or secured support from other sources.

To request funding, please email the Director of the Centre – in 2026–28, Ben Jackson — at benjamin.jackson@univ.ox.ac.uk. Your request should include:

· a brief description of the event;

· the proposed date, venue, and format of the event;

· an explanation of how the event relates to intellectual history, the history of ideas, or political thought;

· a list of expected expenses;

· the sum requested from the Centre, up to a maximum of £250;

· details of any other funding sources applied for or secured.

· ideas for potential event-related blog posts – e.g., state-of-the-field essays, interviews with visiting speakers, or insights into new research.

Requests will be considered at termly OCIH meetings. Applicants are therefore encouraged to apply at least one term in advance of the event. Retrospective applications will not be considered.

Because the Centre can make only a limited number of awards each year, priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received support. Successful applicants will be notified after the relevant termly meeting.

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Rhetoric of Debate: A Parliamentary Innovation

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The Estates General and the King of France: The Imperfect Union

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Power over the most Powerful: The Paradox of Parliamentarism

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Interview: Faridah Zaman

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Representation without a Parliament: How Latin America's Colonial Cities Thrived without Cortes

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Parliaments as Meeting Places for Political Concepts

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Recovering Europe's Parliamentary Culture, 1500-1700

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Parliamentary Humanism: The History of Parliaments as The History of Ideas

Philosophers in Study (1700) by Johann Michael Bretschneider

Gottfried Leibniz as a Projector in a World of Projectors in the 1670s

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The Venture of the Islamicate: The History of a Key Concept in Islamic Intellectual History

The Leaders of Europe in Debate during the Congress of Cienna 1814-15

Saint-Simon's Technocratic Internationalism, 1802-1825

Engraving of Parliament during the Commonwealth 1650

The State and Intellectual History: The Hartlib Circle and the Forgotten Reform of English Education, 1649-53