Related Projects
This page presents an overview of our current projects, as well as projects conducted in the recent past. These projects are funded by a wide range of institutions, such as the European Commission, the Netherlands Science Organization (NWO), the European Science Foundation (ESF). Most of these projects are undertaken in close collaboration with other institutes.
Projects in Historical Development research
ICT Innovation Project
Project Coordinators: Abe de Jong and Herman de Jong
Description: Professors Abe de Jong and Herman de Jong received a grant of 160,000 euro for a UG ICT Innovation Fund Proposal titled Digitization of printed registries to structured data. The project’s idea is to deliver a machine learning-powered online platform to extract structured information from scanned source material. The tool will be able to handle data published as printed registries, e.g. securities, trade statistics, population and production censuses, patent data etc. to enable research on such data. These sources can easily cover tens of thousands of pages. Currently, scanned or digitized versions may be obtained using existing OCR tools. But they often give scanned information as unstructured text or as paragraphs ill-suited for interpretation in the form as tables or statistics. The proposed tool will instead produce output as ordered spreadsheet data of ready-for-research output. The project will be developed together with colleagues from the UG CIT.
Duration: 2024-
Gauging Past Performance
Project Coordinators: Herman de Jong
Description: Creating Financial Metadata for Economics, Finance, and Economic History in the Netherlands. This project is funded by the Platform Digital Infrastructure Social Sciences and Humanities.
Duration: 2020-2024
Taking Stock
Project Coordinators: Herman de Jong
Description: Investigating the function of the Amsterdam stock exchange during a highly dynamic period of growth, structural change, and crisis, 1870-1940. This project is funded by the NWO (Netherlands Science Foundation).
Duration: 2020-2024
The African population boom in historical perspective
Project Coordinator: Jutta Bolt
Description: This project aims to present African population growth patterns for the period 1820-1960, using thus far unexplored missionary records. This project is financially supported by The Wallenberg Foundations.
Duration: 2017-2022 | Website
AFLIT
African Long term Inequality Trends
Project Coordinator: Jutta Bolt
Description: Research network dedicated to constructing social tables for the advancement in mapping, estimating and analysing historical economic inequality trends in the sub-Sahara African region. This project is financially supported by The Wallenberg Foundations and the Swedish Research Council.
Duration: 2015-2021 | Website
Pessimism and Prosperity
The welfare paradox of interwar Europe in a global perspective.
Project Coordinators: Herman de Jong
Description: The welfare paradox of interwar Europe in a global perspective. This project is funded by the NWO (Netherlands Science Foundation).
Duration: 2013-2018
Modern Times
European Capitalism in the Second Industrial Revolution 1900-1950
Project Coordinators: Herman de Jong
Description: European Capitalism in the Second Industrial Revolution 1900-1950. This project is funded by the NWO (Netherlands Science Foundation).
Duration: 2009-2013 | Website
HNA
Historical National Accounts
Project Coordinators: Jutta Bolt
Description: The datahub on Comparative Historical National Accounts provides information on Gross Domestic Product, including an industry breakdown, for the period ca. 1870-1950. This project is funded by the NWO (Netherlands Science Foundation) and the European Science Foundation (ESF).
Duration: 2005-2007