Each year the Royal Historical Society holds elections to appoint three new members to its Council. The Council is the Society’s governing body, with responsibility for the objectives and work of the RHS.
The election round for 2025 is now open, with an invitation to RHS Fellows to submit nominations to stand in this year’s ballot. All Councillors are Fellows of the Society, and those seeking election must also be current Fellows.
If you are interested in standing for election in 2025, we’ve prepared this brief commentary about the Council, and the activities and experiences of current Councillors.
We hope this answers the questions you may have before submitting your nomination before the closing date of Friday 11 August.
What is the Society’s Council?
The Royal Historical Society is predominantly a voluntary organisation. It’s run by a Council whose 17 members (the Society’s trustees) ensure the smooth-running and development of the organisation. The Council comprises a body of Fellows of the Society, each of whom serves a four-year term—meeting regularly as a Council, and also working in smaller groups on the Society’s committees. Councillors also work closely with the Society’s office team, based at University College London, who are responsible for the daily running and management of the Society.
The Society’s committees reflect areas of interest to professional historians, including Research and Education Policy, Publications, Research Funding and Support, and the Society’s Membership development. In addition, Councillors lead, support and participate in a range of activities central to the Society’s work. These include our advocacy work in support of the discipline; professional development and training for historians; visits to UK history departments; judging the Society’s annual awards and prizes; and academic event planning.
The Council is led by its President, Professor Lucy Noakes (University of Essex), who took up her role in November 2024. It includes historians from across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; and at different career stages (from ‘early career’ to retired), and with experience of working in a range of higher education institutions.
What are some of the Council’s current areas of activity?
The Council and RHS office work closely together to ensure that the aims of the Society are best met. The Society’s work includes a number of core areas of oversight: for example, research and education policy and publishing, and core activities central to the Society, among them research support, membership and finance. The precise focus within each of these categories is shaped by need and by the Society’s strategic objectives, which are reviewed and developed annually.
Current priorities for Councillors—both as members of the full Council and of subject specific committees—include: the broadening of the Society’s membership to include historians working in sectors other than higher education; consideration of the future of research assessment in HE, in anticipation of REF2029; new funding schemes to extend research support to benefit those least well-represented in graduate study; the career ‘pipeline’ for historians, from A-Level to graduate research to employment in history-related professions; the opening up of the Society’s publications, including its journal Transactions, and the development of the Society as a fully national and international community of historians able to create their own networks based on research interests.
Of particular concern at present, and for several years, is the Society’s advocacy work: to support and defend university departments from cuts or closure, and the better promotion of the civic and cultural value of history and historical understanding.
This is far from an exhaustive list. Councillors bring their own ideas for initiatives, as well as relaying proposals from the membership to Council. New areas of work are then reviewed and developed.
How much time’s involved in being a Councillor?
Meetings of the full Council are held five times a year, in February, May, July, September and November. Council sessions are opportunities to discuss the Society’s role and work at the highest level, with Council being the Society’s principal forum and decision-making body.
Meetings are held both in-person, at the Society’s Council Room at UCL, and online and in hybrid formats for those unable to travel to individual meetings. Our Councillors are from institutions from across the UK, and we pay for travel and accommodation for all Councillors to attend these meetings. The Council is also central to the development of the Society’s strategy, representing the interests and concerns of the membership.
Councillors are currently engaged in the development of the Society’s new strategic plan for 2026-28. This draws on finding from this year’s membership survey and a series of focus groups held in June and July 2025 with different membership categories—including early career and mid-career historians, ‘independent’ historians without an institutional affiliation, and international members of the Society’s Fellowship. Other sessions have brought together Fellows and Members to consider the Society’s future approach to key areas such as advocacy and campaigning and membership and networking.
As members of one, or sometimes two, committees, Councillors also meet in smaller groups through the year. Committee work allows for more focused involvement in three key areas: the Society’s activities to support the historical community (for example, research support, membership and publishing); its contribution to the running of the Society (e.g. finance and governance); and its engagement with sector-wide developments in research and education policy, and demonstration of history’s value in civil society.
In each case committee members, and especially new members, are supported and guided by the Committee’s chair and members of the RHS office who provide secretarial support. More established Councillors often take on projects within a committee or across the Society, according to their interests.
What’s it like being a Councillor?
In the following section five serving members of the Society’s Council comment on their personal experience. These commentaries include first impressions from three recently elected members (Cath Feely, Jesús Sanjurjo, and Karen Harvey, who took up their positions in 2024) and longer-term perspectives from two Counclllors (Cait Beaumont and Melissa Calaresu) who will be stepping down in November on completion of their four-year term.
As a member of a small team of historians in a wider Humanities department, being on the RHS Council for the last eight months has really helped to put my experience into the context of the wider discipline.
It has also been gratifying to be able to bring that experience of a being a historian in an ‘applied university’ to Council discussions.
One of the most rewarding experiences so far has been taking part in one of our visits to departments, which gave us the opportunity to advocate for History colleagues in a direct and local context. Although I knew in theory the range of activities the RHS facilitates, reading through grant applications from all career stages and judging early career prizes has brought me into contact with the variety and richness of current scholarship and has been a genuinely enjoyable experience.
Dr Cath Feely, University of Derby
Elected to Council in 2024
I was elected to the RHS Council (and as a Trustee) in September 2021. I was over the moon and privileged to be endorsed by peers who supported my campaign pitch—to ensure experiences of professional historians working in ‘post-92s’, outside of history departments and in the wake of history programme closures—were included on Council.
This was important in 2021 to illuminate the different working environments professional historian’s encounter. For example, the lack of regular sabbaticals and limited if no research time or research support, all which could surprise colleagues working in more ‘research intensive’ institutions. Since 2021 these challenges have spread more widely across the sector. In response, the RHS has worked hard to advocate on behalf of historians and to contribute in practical ways to support ‘doing history’ in difficult times.
As a member of the Research Policy and Research Support committees a highlight for me has been the awarding of funding grants for workshops, archival visits, new oral histories and conference attendance, to scholars who otherwise would not be able to do this work.
Knowing that this financial support would initiate new projects driving forward knowledge and understanding of our past, present and futures, has been incredibly exciting. It reassures me about the sustainability of historical research, despite all the current challenges. Another highlight was participating in the mentoring of ECRs of colour in publishing their first journal article and meeting the recipients of the RHS Masters’ scholarships programme; it was brilliant to hear about this new research and to witness the passion fuelling all these fascinating projects.
Knowledge exchange goes both ways as a RHS Councillor. I have learnt so much about historical fields/methodologies beyond my own expertise. I did this via mentoring but also by being a judge on our book prize and attending the wide variety of public lectures hosted by the RHS.
I also gained a lot through our ‘Doing History in Public Conversations’ (2024) where we met with professional specialists to learn how to best deliver impactful public history. All these experiences have reminded me of why history matters. This is important in sustaining us as a community now constantly having to defend historical teaching and research in UK higher education. One final highlight of the past four years was getting to know the RHS staff and fellow Council members.
Being able to spend time with this amazing group of people, most of whom I would otherwise have never met, and to share our passion, interests and concerns about ‘doing history’ has been wonderful. Having this opportunity to co-design actions that expand public interest in history, enable original, significant and impactful research to be undertaken, and to advocate on behalf of historians, has without a doubt been a career highlight.
Professor Caitriona Beaumont, London South Bank University
Elected to Council 2021
In my first months as a member of the Council, I’ve been struck by the seriousness and care with which discussions are conducted—they are rigorous, detailed, and always grounded in a shared commitment to the Society’s mission.
The Office staff, whose dedication and generosity underpin so much of what the RHS does, have been nothing short of exceptional. What has surprised me most is the sheer breadth of the Society’s work: from policy and advocacy to events, publications, and public engagement. It is a dynamic and multifaceted organisation, and being part of it has been both humbling and energising.
Looking ahead, I’m particularly keen to contribute to the Society’s current strategic review. This is a crucial opportunity to help shape the RHS’s future direction, and to ensure that the concerns I raised in my election statement—around precarity, inclusion, and the public role of history—are part of that conversation.
I would encourage anyone considering standing for Council to do so. The Society needs a diversity of voices and experiences, and it offers a platform where those voices can be heard and make a difference.
Dr Jesús Sanjurjo, University of Strathclyde
Elected to Council 2024
I was elected as an RHS Councillor and Trustee in the summer of 2020 when the world was in full COVID mode and with the support of colleagues, Frances Andrews, Rebecca Earle, Emma Hunter, and Ludmilla Jordanova to whom I remain grateful for their friendship over my career as an historian.
However, it was one of my seconders, Hamish Scott, who got there first as my undergraduate teacher at St Andrews, now almost forty years ago, and who remained an important influence until his untimely passing in December 2022.
Hamish gave me a first glimpse of the practice and life of the historian—the measure of his prose and the careful judgement demanded of our sources, the importance that he placed on learning languages, but also his networks of scholarship and conviviality across the world. This generosity has also marked my time as an RHS Councillor as I have got to know and work with historians working in very different conditions and contexts in universities around the UK.
As an RHS Councillor, I have sat on various committees, the most significant of which for me has been the Education Policy Committee which focuses on teaching and research in what are trying times for the Humanities with fiscal cuts and increasingly politicised debates at all levels. I also had the pleasure of reading new and important historical writing by our younger colleagues for the RHS Early Career Article Prize and the First Book Prize in different years.
Getting involved with the RHS has not only reminded me of the capaciousness of our subject but also our common cause as historians in defence of our discipline through the RHS departmental visits over the year.
As an RHS Councillor, I have also seen that historians enjoy the challenges of interdisciplinary exchange, but that we also care about communicating the specificity and value of history to wider audiences. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been involved with the Society and also to my fellow Councillors, Officers, and Staff all of whom have made this experience valued and valuable.
Dr Melissa Calaresu, University of Cambridge
Elected to Council 2020
Serving as a Councillor and Trustee of the Society since November 2024 has been terrifically satisfying. To be in a room with colleagues from across the UK, united by a commitment to the importance of historical research, and engaging in meaningful conversations about how the RHS can best sustain that work, feels valuable and worthwhile.
From reading grant applications to judging book prizes, I have learned a huge amount about the vibrancy and diversity of the discipline. The role does demand time and close attention, but it really is a privilege and a pleasure to give service to my community of history researchers.
Professor Karen Harvey, University of Birmingham
Elected to Council 2024
Joining the Society’s Council: the 2025 elections
Each year, three members of the Council step down on completing their four-year term. In their place the Fellowship annually elects three new members of Council using a preferential voting system. We now seek nominations from Fellows of the Society who’d like to put themselves forward for election in 2025. Details of this year’s call for nominations have recently been emailed to all Fellows. Applications to enter the ballot for 2025 are open until Friday 11 August.
If you wish to stand for election, please submit a short statement (200 words) and secure the support of four Fellows of the Society, one of whom—as principal sponsor—will also contribute a short statement in support of your candidacy. Applications should be completed online via the Society’s application portal. Voting will take place in August, with results announced in September. New Councillors, who are also trustees of the Society, will take up their posts in November 2025.
Further questions? Contacting the Society
If you are considering standing for election in 2025, and would like to discuss the role further, please contact Professor Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society: president@royalhistsoc.org Lucy is very happy to provide further insight into the Society, its Council and the activities of Councillors.
If you’ve been asked to support the nomination of a Fellow to Council, and would like to discuss how best to support your candidate, please email: president@royalhistsoc.org.
