Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Merchants of the Staple)

Based at University of York campus (with some remote working options available)

Department

The School for Business and Society at the University of York brings together business history, management, and social and public policy in a School committed to research that serves the public good. 

This post sits within RISK-LABS: Risk Societies: The Global Firm as a Laboratory of Risk Management, 1280–2030, a five-year European Research Council Advanced Grant led by Professor Teresa da Silva Lopes. RISK-LABS reconceives the firm as a historical laboratory of risk governance, tracing across seven centuries how firms identified, distributed and managed risk under conditions of uncertainty. It does so through four British global firms: the Merchants of the Staple, the English East India Company, Jardine Matheson and BAE Systems

Role

You will lead Work Package 2 on the Merchants of the Staple, one of medieval England's most important overseas trading organisations, and examine how its members built institutional arrangements to govern commercial, political and financial risk. You will conduct original archival research covering c.1300–1700 in the United Kingdom and continental Europe; build and manage historical datasets; undertake prosopographical and network analysis of merchants and institutions; and publish high-quality outputs in leading journals in business, economic and international business history. You will present findings at international conferences, help organise project meetings, seminars and dissemination activities, contribute to comparative frameworks across the wider project, and work closely with the Principal Investigator and the RISK-LABS team. You may also contribute to the supervision of doctoral and master’s students.

Skills, Experience & Qualification needed

• A PhD, awarded or submitted, in business history, economic history, medieval or early modern history, or a cognate discipline
• Advanced knowledge of the commercial and institutional history of medieval and/or early modern England and its European trading partners
• Advanced knowledge of secondary and theoretical literatures on commercial and political risk, medieval and early modern conceptions of risk and uncertainty, and mercantile time. 
• Ability to read and interpret manuscript sources in English, Latin, Italian, French, and Flemish, and the palaeographical skills to work with original records
• A record of independent archival research in UK and/or continental European repositories, and a publication record commensurate with career stage
• Ability to build and manage structured historical datasets, familiarity with prosopographical or network methods, familiarity with cutting-edge AI transcription techniques
• Excellent written and spoken English, and the ability to communicate research to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in an international, comparative team, and willingness to travel for extended archival research

Interview date: To be agreed.

For further information, please contact Professor Teresa da Silva Lopes at teresa.lopes@york.ac.uk 

The University strives to be diverse and inclusive – a place where we can ALL be ourselves.

We particularly encourage applications from people who identify as Black, Asian or from a Minority Ethnic background, who are underrepresented at the University. 

We offer family friendly, flexible working arrangements, with forums and inclusive facilities to support our staff. #EqualityatYork

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