Visiting fellowship program
The INZ is pleased to open applications for the fifth edition of its Visiting Fellowship for the academic year 2026/2027. We welcome scholars working on contemporary political, social, or economic history and related fields, as well as digital humanities to apply for short-term residencies ranging from two weeks to two months.
About the Institute:
Established in 1959, the Institute of Contemporary History (INZ) in Ljubljana is Slovenia’s central research institution for contemporary history and digital humanities. Its research activities are organized around four core programmes: Political History (from the 19th to the 21st century, with comparative and transnational perspectives); Economic, Social and Environmental History; Digital Humanities; and Research Infrastructure.
The INZ is currently home to a particularly dynamic research environment. The Institute hosts two ERC-funded projects: the Starting Grant Brokers-of-NAM (on the transnational networks of the Non-Aligned Movement) and the Advanced Grant BeNaSta (on popular nationalism and minority movements in late 19th-century Eastern Europe, the first ERC project ever transferred to a Slovenian host institution); alongside several MSCA fellowships and a range of nationally and internationally funded projects. This reflects a broader institutional commitment to building long-term European research partnerships and to positioning the INZ as a hub for collaborative historical research.
The INZ is also a pioneer in the development of Digital Humanities in Slovenia and the region. It is the national coordinating institution for the national digital infrastructure for arts and humanities DARIAH-SI, and a member of DARIAH ERIC and a member of CLARIN.SI (Slovene Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure) the Slovene national node of the CLARIN ESFRI.
The INZ publishes the peer-reviewed journal Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino / Contributions to Contemporary History.
The thematic axes currently shaping intellectual life at the Institute include:
- The history of Yugoslavia, non-alignment, and Cold War transnational networks – including the global politics of neutralism, anticolonialism, and international solidarity
- Nationalism, national movements, and identity formation – with a particular focus on popular and grassroots dimensions, minority nationalisms, and the reception of nationalist politics from below, in rural and peasant communities
- Border history and border studies – examining borders as historical objects, the work of border commissions, and the long construction of contemporary European borders
- Women’s history and gender in political thought – across South and East Central Europe throughout the long twentieth century, including care history and the history of women’s labour and activism
- Memory politics and post-socialist transitions – including the reframing of the socialist past in education, public life, and political culture after 1989
- Social and environmental history – the relations between economic development, social change, and the natural environment in Slovenian and broader regional history
- Digital humanities – corpus linguistics, digital archiving, NLP tools for Slovenian and South Slavic languages, and the digitisation of historical collections
For more about the current research programs, see the following link.
Eligibility requirements and goals of the fellowship:
We warmly welcome applications from doctoral candidates, early career researchers, and senior academics.
Visiting fellows are expected to make an active contribution to the Institute’s intellectual life by collaborating with one (or more) members of the Institute or bringing specific expertise that complements ongoing research activities. The scope and precise nature of the contribution will be defined in consultation with the host researcher.
For a list of previous fellows and their projects, please consult the following page.
We particularly encourage applicants interested in developing collaborative research initiatives with members of the Institute, as well as early career researchers who wish to explore the possibility of applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship at the Institute in the coming years.
Selected fellows may also be invited to present their work as part of the Zgodovina na špici/History on the Edge lecture series organized by the Institute.
More broadly, the visiting fellowship scheme seeks to foster long-term institutional partnerships, contribute to the Institute’s strategic vision of international collaboration across Europe and beyond, and expand the methodological, thematic, and geographical horizons of research conducted at the Institute.
The range of topics we are interested in encompasses:
- political history of East Central Europe (parliamentary history, transition, post-socialism, and the most recent post-1989 history, women and politics, politics from below, etc.)
- economic history and social history of East Central Europe (rural and family history, gender in the 19th century, trauma and gender violence)
- history of Yugoslavia (national and transnational perspectives)
- comparative and transnational history of organizations and associations in the 20th century, particularly during the period of state socialism
- history of political thought and intellectual history in East Central Europe
- border studies and nationalism in East Central Europe
- environmental history (relations between economic and social development and the natural environment)
- digital humanities (digital research infrastructures, data management and data curation, digital methods and data-driven approaches for the humanities)
The Institute is offering:
- Free accommodation in an apartment in Dom Podiplomcev in Ljubljana
- Travel expenses for a round trip from the home institution of the fellow (max 500 EUR).
- A working space at the Institute (Privoz 11, near the National Archives and the National and University Library).
- Access to the library of the Institute, which is one of the finest libraries for 20th-century history in Slovenia, containing publications from the whole Yugoslav space (and broader).
- A friendly working environment and an opportunity to participate in the work of the Institute and to foster long-term individual and institutional cooperation.
The Institute does not offer any additional financial assistance, but the fellowship can, of course be combined with other forms of funding (for example, researcher’s home institution, COST Actions’ Short Term Scientific Missions, Erasmus traineeship program, CLARIN ERIC Mobility Grants, etc).
The call for application for 2026/2027 is now open
The Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana is accepting applications for its Visiting Fellowship Programme, for visits to take place between 1 October 2026 and 1 October 2027.
The application deadline is 1 July 2026.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome by 31 July 2026 at the latest.
Application materials
To apply, please submit:
- a completed application form;
- a CV, including a list of publications;
- up to two recent publications or work-in-progress papers relevant to the proposed research (optional).
For applications and further inquiries, please contact: projekti@inz.si
Contact person: Jovana Papović