International Institute of Social History

The IISH is well-known worldwide as the archive of national and international social movements. In the past decade it has begun digitizing its collections as well as storing digital material, in formats compatible with the model of Trusted Digital Repositories. In conjunction with its research strategy, a further step is the actual organizing of the construction of high-quality datasets that allow for global comparative research in social and economic history. The research staff of the IISH is focusing on two large, interrelated projects: Global Labor History and Global Economic History. The former aspires to reconstruct and analyze the development of labour relations, as well as their economic, cultural and social implications, around the globe for the period of 1500 to the present. The latter aims to chart and interpret the development of global economic inequality. Both projects require a massive amount of data on highly diverse indicators that, in conjunction, will provide a new long-term perspective on current social and economic problems associated with globalisation. The IISH actively supports existing or constructs new collaboratories of specialists around the world, who collect, standardize and share their data. In this project, the emphasis is put on supporting and extending European collaboratories. The enhanced infrastructure of research data will not only provide a long-term view on European social convergence and economic integration, but will also be a vital asset in global social and economic research.