Centre Stage

CEPH | Centre for Economics, Policy and History

What is CEPH?

The Centre for Economics, Policy and History combines Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, two institutions with existing clusters of research excellence in economic history on the island of Ireland.  This Centre of Excellence helps both universities increase their capacity and enables them to lead the development of Ireland into a global Centre of Excellence in policy-relevant historical research.  
The Centre has three key objectives: 

• produce high-quality economic history research,  
• enhance capacity building,  
• and engage in outreach with policymakers, academics and the wider public. 

So, what is economic history?

Economic history is the study of how institutions, policies, and events of the past have shaped long-run patterns of economic development and change. Economic historians use the techniques of the economist to study the past and try to understand it, whilst also using it as a laboratory to test economic ideas. They aim to explain how institutions work, understand the relevant context for conditions today, and measure the efficacy of competing public policies. In short, insights from economic history can help policymakers make better policy choices in the present. It is an extremely important component of economic research, with each of the last four Nobel Prizes in Economics including an economic history component. 

What are some of CEPH's research highlights?

Research advancements and book publications

The Centre’s members have advanced the research frontier, raising the profile of Irish economic history and the Centre across Europe and further afield. This was carried out through annual conferences and workshops, bringing academic experts together in our universities from across Ireland and the wider world. These networks have led to the publication of many research papers in top journals, boosting the research profiles of both Ireland and economic history in a global context. The Centre has also produced several books on economic and business history, perfect for someone wishing to discover economic history. These include Prof. Marvin Suesse’s The Nationalist Dilemma, an exploration of the economics of nationalism and how nationalists think about the economy, and Prof. John Turner and Michael Aldous’ The CEO, a much-needed history of British business leaders since the nineteenth century. 

Ensuring the future of economic history

In terms of capacity building, the Centre has contributed to the development of future economic historians. To date, the Centre has trained postdoctoral researchers and PhD students in the area of economic history, and provided invaluable job experience for early-career researchers on exciting research and data projects.  

Digitisation of statistics

The other aspect of the Centre’s capacity building has been the construction and digitisation of historical economic statistics for Ireland. By collaborating with the Central Statistics Office, Royal Irish Academy and the Northern Irish Statistics and Research Agency, CEPH has digitised and uploaded hundreds of thousands of Irish historical data which you can explore right now. From birth and death rates to the Irish output of pigs in the twentieth century, there is an array of material to be explored: https://data.cso.ie/product/ceph 

What else does CEPH do?

Outreach programmes

The Centre has an active outreach programme and several initiatives designed to engage with the public, notably our podcast, Everything Economic History. Hosted by CEPH Research and Policy Officer Andrew Dorman and CEPH Postdoctoral Research Lloyd Maphosa, the podcast interviews economic historians about their research in an accessible environment. You can listen on Apple or Spotify now. 

Public events and lectures

CEPH prides itself on its public events and lectures, which are always presented with a similarly accessible tone. These include our annual Alice Murray Award and Lecture, named after the first woman to receive a degree from the London School of Economics. We also collaborate with the ESRC Festival of Social Science, bringing academic research to the general public and engaging in conversation with the local community. You can watch recordings of these here. 

Secondary school workshops

Finally, CEPH understands that economic history cannot survive without a pipeline of new economists with an interest in the past. To this end, we developed our flagship Secondary School workshop ‘Can You Run Ireland’, which has been rolled out to dozens of schools across Ireland. This workshop places a class of 24 students in the shoes of the Irish Government from 1922 to 2022, asking if they can run the economy more successfully than the government of the time. It is extremely popular and interactive, with students and teachers alike providing great feedback about the programme. 

Since its founding, CEPH has covered as many angles as it could and has successfully balanced research excellence, data digitisation and academic outreach. It demonstrates what is possible with proper research support and funding and is an exemplar of the sort of good that can come from adequate research support and funding. 

How is CEPH funded?

This Research Centre of Excellence is Strand II project funded under the North South Research Programme (NSRP). The NSRP is a collaborative scheme funded through the Government’s Shared Island Fund. It is being administered by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) on behalf of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. 

Visit CEPH's website