Research activities

The Institute of History brings together many outstanding experts, who not only substantially push the boundaries of understanding in their respective fields but also help shape future generations of historians and specialists in other fields through their teaching activities at universities and the Institute of History (e.g. PhD student training). By organizing various events within the international scientific community and participating in numerous associations, they also promote the internationalization of Czech science and the transfer of its results abroad. Since 1990, the Institute of History has been the leading representative of the Czech historical sciences at prestigious international historical science congresses (organization of special meetings: Madrid 1990, Sydney 2005, Jinan 2015, Poznaň 2020 [2022]) and plays a crucial role in the organization of international research collaboration within international committees.

The Institute of History also plays an essential role in developing infrastructure for the discipline through activities that encompass the publication of complete series of source editions and book series from the Middle Ages through to modern history used by a wide spectrum of researchers, the publication of specialized journals on the history of the Middle Ages, the early modern period, modern history, historical geography, and area studies on Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe as well as, primarily, the compilation of a continual bibliography of the discipline in the form of a comprehensive database (the Institute of History is the only institute in the Czech Republic to have fulfilled this role on a long-term basis), the preservation, modern processing, and dissemination of valuable collections (August Sedláček estate, map collection, etc.) for use by members of the scientific community and the general public, and the development of libraries at the institute’s various sites that are open to and frequently visited by the public (more than 265,000 volumes in total).