Call for proposals to host the next International Conference on Risk and Insurance in History (ICRIH), 2028-2029

18. Mai 2026

The Scientific Committee of the ICRIH, consisting of leading scholars in the field, is now accepting proposals to organise and host the next ICRIH in the summer of 2028 or at the latest 2029.

The organisers of the first ICRIH conference in 2019 in Seville believed that the field of risk and insurance history had reached a critical mass of scholars around the world who would benefit from participating in a large interdisciplinary conference that could generate new intellectual synergies. In Seville participants across 22 sessions covered a wide range of topics and methodologies from the history of marine insurance and maritime law since the Middle Ages, to risk management and insurance in the Atlantic slave trade, to the operation of micro-insurance among rural populations in the developing world, to the modern growth of alternative risk transfer products and insurance-linked securities. Most corners of the world were covered with papers on North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The successor conferences held in Basel in 2022 and Warsaw in 2025 were similarly interdisciplinary and international, for instance with 81 participants in Basel coming from 22 countries around the globe.

The Scientific Committee of the ICRIH, consisting of leading scholars in the field, now invite proposals to organise and host the next ICRIH in the summer of 2028 or at the latest 2029. The host organising committee will have the benefit of liaising with the Scientific Committee, which will offer active support and advice on the location, timing and structure of the conference, call for papers, recommendations for keynote speakers, evaluating proposals for papers and sessions, adjudicating awards for best papers etc, and seeking funding for the conference. The host organisers will also have the benefit of a dedicated website for the ICRIH, which is being developed by the University of Basel, Switzerland.

The ICRIH is intended to be truly inter-disciplinary and seeks participants from a wide range of fields that touch on historical and/or long-run aspects of risk and insurance, including economic, business, financial, social and cultural history, economics, business and management studies, sociology, legal studies, social anthropology and more. As well as including established academic scholars and young and new researchers, the ICRIH has a track record of participation from professionals in the insurance industry, and it is anticipated that the next ICRIH will also see the involvement of all these groups. 

Please send hosting proposals and/or enquiries to

Professor Robin Pearson, Professor Emeritus of Economic History, University of Hull, UK, at ehsrp70@gmail.com 

on behalf of the Scientific Committee of the ICRIH:

Professor Lars Fredrick Andresson, Sweden; Professor Gustavo de Angel, Mexico; Professor Sabine Go, Netherlands; Professor Dr Phillip Hellwege, Germany; Professor Dr Sebastian Kohl, Germany; Professor Jean Kwon, USA; Professor Dr Martin Lengwiler, Switzerland; Professor Jeronia Pons, Spain; Professor Emerita Grietjie Verhoef, South Africa.