News

We are hereby launching the Warwick Horizon Europe Seed FundLink opens in a new window for the academic year 2025-26. The fund aims to support Warwick academics and researchers to engage with the Horizon Europe programme.

The Seed Fund provides funding between £3 K- £7.5 K/ award for projects made under one of the three routes:

1. Route 1: Collaborations (max. £7.5K/ award)
2. Route 2: Brokerage Events (max. £3K/ award)
3. Route 3: Consultancy Services (max. £7.5K/ award)

Further details on the Routes can be found on the Warwick Horizon Europe Seed FundLink opens in a new window webpage.

Applications consist of one summary CV per proposal (including details of all relevant collaborators/ consultancy services where applicable) and the completed Application Form (download from ‘How do I apply?’ on the call pageLink opens in a new window). Submit applications to the call manager, Lelia Buretia lelia.buretia@warwick.ac.uk.

The next deadline is: Wed 3 December 2025 at 5pm (GMT). Decisions are to be communicated by the end of w/c 15 December. Projects may start immediately but no later than 2 months after receiving the outcome notification. If sufficient funds remain after the December panel, a second deadline will be available in March (Wed 4 March 2026 at 5pm), with decisions from the March panel to be communicated by the end of w/c 16 March 2026. Please note that the March panel is not guaranteed and is dependent on the remaining availability of funds at that point, therefore earlier applications, i.e. to the December deadline, are encouraged.

All projects and all project expenditure must be finalised by 31^st July 2026. No project extensions are possible past this date. Any funds unspent by 31^st July 2026 will need to be returned.

The autumn newsletter is out, on the Museum Studies web site.

• Introduction from network coordinator Robert O'Toole.
• The Museum Explorations podcast and YouTube channels.
• Exhibitions by Warwick People (Kate Astbury, Cathy Hampton).
• Publications by Warwick academics (Jamie Larkin).
• Special edition of the Exchanges journal, and how you can contribute.
• Plans for the next event, on gaming, arts, humanities, and museums.
• The Campus as Gallery and Museum.
• Progress update on the Bridges conference, bringing together art, maths, and science.
• Museum technologies (including funding opportunities).
• Is it possible to be over-museumed? 25 museums in one summer, what did we learn? – a personal reflection.

Read it online here.

Students and staff from across the university are invited to join us for a new lecture series exploring censorship and freedom of speech: "Culture Wars: Power, Censorship, Freedom".

Each week throughout the year, an academic from a different discipline will explore this important topic from their own angle. There will also be time for questions and discussion.

This term, all lectures are in MS.04 (Zeeman Building) on Mondays, 11am-12pm, beginning on Monday 13 October (Week 2).

The first lecture, by Professor Gary Watt from the School of Law, is titled "Moving Statues and Social Movements - Free Speech Acts and the Colston Case".

You can read a schedule for the series and descriptions of each talk in Term 1 here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/culturewars/Link opens in a new window 

Do please join us.

Dr Stephen Purcell

English and Comparative Literary Studies

We are excited to announce the return of the Spooky History Conference for 2025.

We invite abstracts for 15-minute papers on any aspect of history (broadly defined) that is spooky! This can include studies on the supernatural, witchcraft, magic, the gothic, or Halloween, as long as it is spooky!

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

• · ghosts
• · the supernatural
• · witches
• · death
• · the gothic
• · the history of Halloween

We strongly encourage submissions from PGRs, ECRs, and independent researchers.
This informal conference will be entirely online on Halloween!

All papers should be c.15 mins and we invite submissions from individuals (200 words) as well as panel proposals of 3-4 speakers (600 words). Please submit your abstracts along with a short biography to spookyhistory23@gmail.com by Friday the 3rd of October 2025.

The conference will be held online via Zoom on Friday the 31st of October 2025.

All the best,

The Spooky History Team