CEHS Initiative to Support Junior Scholars at the 2026 AHA Annual Meeting

Conference participation, especially at major events such as the American Historical Association’s annual meeting, remains a major indicator of scholarly productivity and excellence and is thus tied to professional advancement. However, the cost of attending such conferences can be prohibitive for junior scholars. The Central European History Society is thus pleased to continue an initiative that aims to encourage junior scholars’ professional development by providing both financial and organizational support to their participation at the AHA’s annual meeting, at which time CEHS also holds its annual meeting. 

As part of this initiative, CEHS will help organize and support up to two (2) conference panels on themes related to Central European History. Interested junior scholars – ABD doctoral candidates and recent PhDs (up to three years after degree completion at the time of submission) – will need to propose a session comprising three paper presentations. Panels with three junior scholars as presenters will be preferred; panels with two junior scholars and a more senior colleague will receive consideration. At least two presenters must be based in North America. Note too, that in keeping with standard practices for academic conferences, panels with presenters all from the same institution cannot be considered for this initiative.

Sessions may be submitted complete with moderator and commentator or organizers can request that CEHS help identify and secure the participation of scholars for these roles. In that case, the CEHS executive board will help the organizers of each sponsored session, as needed, to recruit appropriate senior scholars to serve as moderators and commentators, thereby enhancing the panel’s visibility. 

CEHS offers a grant of $1,000 to each junior scholar who presents a paper in one of these sponsored sessions. The amount can be used to defray cost of travel, hotel accommodation, and/or AHA membership and registration fees. (Note that all US-based historians presenting at AHA sessions must be AHA members; foreign presenters are exempt from the membership rule). 

For this round of the initiative, CEHS invites junior scholars to propose sessions for the AHA’s 2026 Annual Meeting, which will meet in Chicago from January 8-11, 2026. The deadline for all applications is December 12, 2024. 

Application process

Because the panels selected as part of this initiative will be submitted to the AHA’s program committee, all applications need to follow the AHA’s guidelines for session proposals. Note, the deadline for participation in the initiative comes well before the AHA’s deadline because the CEHS’s selection committee will be working with the organizers of the sessions it accepts to support to fine-tune their proposals and recruit moderators and/or commentators. 

Every session proposal needs to include:

• A list of all participants, including current email address, affiliation, city, state, and country. If you would like CEHS to help recruit a moderator and/or commentator for the session, please indicate that here.
• Session title (of no more than 20 words) 
• Session abstract (up to 500 words) 
• Short session abstract for the meeting app (up to 50 words) 
• Titles for each paper/presentation
• Abstract or description for each paper/presentation (up to 300 words)
• Biographical paragraph or CV summary (up to 250 words) for each participant.

Please create all proposals as a single Word (.docx) or pdf file and email them to Astrid M. Eckert (aeckert@emory.edu), using “CEHS Initiative to Support Junior Scholars” as the subject. Decisions on the sessions chosen for this initiative will be made by early January 2025. The selected panel(s) will then be submitted for acceptance by the AHA’s program committee (deadline February 15, 2025). Should the AHA decline to accept one or the other panel, CEHS will sponsor it directly and place it on the program. 

For questions regarding the initiative or application procedures, please contact Professor Astrid M. Eckert (aeckert@emory.edu).