Call for Contributions: The Trial and Errors of Grant Applications in Digital Legal History

Posted by Florenz Volkaert on 2024-04-30

We are pleased to announce a special call for papers for an upcoming thematic section in the Journal for Digital Legal History. As part of our ongoing commitment to fostering innovation and interdisciplinary dialogue in the field of digital legal history, we invite scholars to submit their successful or failed grant applications that utilize novel methodologies.

In recent years, the intersection of digital humanities, empirical legal studies, network science, and other social sciences has given rise to many innovative research approaches within legal history. However, securing funding for such projects often presents its own set of challenges and opportunities. Through this thematic section, we aim to highlight the grant application process as a crucial aspect of scholarly endeavour in the digital age.

We welcome submissions that explore the following themes:

Methodological Innovation: Successful or failed grant applications that employ novel methodologies in digital legal history research, including but not limited to network analysis, text mining, computational modeling, and data visualization.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Projects that demonstrate interdisciplinary collaboration between legal historians, digital humanists, computer scientists, sociologists, and other relevant disciplines, as reflected in the grant application process.

Ethical Considerations: Grant applications that address ethical considerations and challenges associated with conducting research in digital legal history, such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the responsible use of digital tools.

Impact and Outreach: Projects that emphasise the potential impact and broader societal relevance of digital legal history research, as articulated in the grant application's outreach and dissemination strategies.

Submission Guidelines:

Manuscripts can be up to 10.000 words. The methodological section of a grant application will be accepted, as long as an introduction is provided, placing the methodology within the wider context of the research project.

All submissions must adhere to the journal's formatting guidelines, which can be found on our website.

Authors should include a cover letter specifying whether the grant application was successful or unsuccessful and any relevant contextual information.

Submission of your full contribution (of any kind) before September 30th, 2024.
Peer-review reports before November 4th, 2024.
Submission of the final version between November 18th - 25th, 2024.
Appearance on the website – pending positive peer review – two to three weeks after final submission.