The Age of Sail saw significant innovations in ship design, which greatly increased European nations ability to explore, compete, and trade globally. However, historians lack evidence to assess the performance of these vessels. This project aims to develop a new methodology to rigorously study technological innovation in ship design across time, taking as comparison Dutch and British ships of the eighteenth century. By combining historical analysis with 3D scanning techniques and engineering simulations, the study pioneers a new methodology for the study of the historical past and provides insights into one of the most innovative periods in navigation history.

Repairing historical injustice is often seen as a product of a specific post-war historical consciousness, human rights idealism, and decolonisation. But this phenomenon has a longer, poorly-understood history stretching back to the period 1650-1830. This project examines the foundations and historical alternatives of coming to terms with an unjust past.

The proposed study investigates the structure and dynamics of religious conflict in Late Antiquity. Rather than presenting a new compilation of evidence, it goes to the core of the problem by studying well-documented examples of Christian-pagan conflict from four different angles and through the prism of contemporary theory of conflicts.

What does it mean that someone is rich? Or poor? Religious answers to such questions, especially those relating to divine election, largely impact society as they (co-)determine how people evaluate wealth and poverty and related issues. Though widely popular, these religious beliefs have not yet been systematically explored, compared, and evaluated in light of their societal implications. To fill that hiatus in the current state of research, this project addresses the following research question: How can contemporary Christian beliefs relating divine election to wealth and poverty be evaluated critically in light of their potential societal implications?

Although Western society is ageing rapidly, knowledge about this process and in particular the very roots of the comparatively high levels of life expectancy in Western Europe are still a mystery. In literature it has been suggested that the rapid loosening of family ties in NW-Europe due to the emergence of the European Marriage Pattern (EMP) from the late medieval period onwards- would lead to hardship for the elderly, but the (limitedly available) data suggest otherwise. In this project we test two potential explanations for this conundrum, by comparing NW- and S-Europe between 1500 and 1900. We first of all (subproject-A) test the biological assumption that reduced fertility also a feature of the EMP- positively influenced life expectancy (in NW-Europe), as suggested in the Disposable Soma Theory. Understanding the long-term effect of this change in demographic behaviour requires a novel method that allows us to study many generations for very long periods back in time. To obtained sufficient, reliable data, different types of sources and datasets (genealogical trees and location-specific family reconstitutions, religious communities) will be used. Secondly (subproject-B), we examine whether the diversity in institutional solutions (state-provided, collective, market-based) to be found in early modern NW-Europe could have increased the welfare of the elderly, by creating overviews of such solutions and linking these to results of subproject-A. Subproject-C studies the impact of (biological) life-cycle events and socio-economic behaviour on life-expectancy, with regard to household structures and saving behavior, thus bringing the insights from the other subprojects together on the household level. Our results will be shared with interested parties via existing channels (www.collective-action.info) and a newly created knowledge exchange platform set-up with active elderly-care providing institutions in the Netherlands. The project will also collaborate intensively with the CLIO-INFRA-project, the Ageing Institute in Newcastle and the University of Southern Denmark.