Eleanor Rathbone Professorship of Contemporary European History

The Faculty of History is seeking applications for the Eleanor Rathbone Professorship of Contemporary European History, available as soon as possible.

This new senior post is intended to reinforce Oxford’s reputation as a major centre for research and teaching in the field of Contemporary European History. We wish to appoint a historian who will extend the Faculty’s expertise into the history of the European present. We would welcome applications from scholars with expertise in the history of Europe from the 1970s onwards  and who engage with the history of the European present in the early twenty-first century and the profound changes that have taken place in many areas of Europe over the last twenty-five years.

The Rathbone Professor will be based at St Antony’s College, where they will maintain and develop the legacy of the work and scholarship undertaken on the contemporary history of Europe by Professor Timothy Garton Ash. It is intended that the appointee will be an established scholar who will combine innovative scholarship and teaching with a wider profile of intellectual engagement. Their work should engage with the history of contemporary Europe as a whole, challenging conventional paradigms of east and west in the era of the Cold War. They will be expected to lead the growth of Contemporary European History within Oxford, including new teaching options on recent and current European history, funded grant applications, workshops, public events and outreach, broadly defined.

Applicants should possess an excellent record of innovative archival research using one or more European languages; a significant record of publications; the capacity to inspire others; and an ability to communicate the importance of history for an understanding of the contemporary identity of Europe.

The closing date for applications is 12:00 noon UK time on Monday 26 January 2026. Interviews are expected to be held in spring 2026.

Informal enquiries are welcome and may be made in strict confidence to Professor Martin Conway, Chair of the History Faculty Board (martin.conway@history.ox.ac.uk).

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