THE MISSION

Eastern European economic history faces numerous challenges. Academic discourse in economics has paid little attention to long-run growth and development. Thus, New Economic History that applies social science theory and quantitative analytical tools to studying the past could not make strong inroads into Eastern European scholarship. By contrast, independent western research was  hampered by a limited knowledge of and/or access to existing sources. Therefore, Eastern European economic history is still gravely underrepresented both in leading international academic journals and at major international conferences.
Only recently had democratization and European integration created opportunities for making good on these shortcomings. International collaboration has already yielded several research papers that both put Eastern Europe back onto the map of economic historians and presented new quantitative evidence drawn from original sources. Additionally, young economists and historians from the region have presented, or are in the process of writing, worthy dissertations at top universities on the subject with the application of modern methodology.

WEast is an international initiative promoting research on the economic history of East, Central and South-East Europe. Our aim is to foster knowledge transfer and collaboration between economic historians and economists with shared interest in this region representing both western and eastern universities and research centres. We organise affordable periodic workshops at prestigious institutions in the eastern half of Europe attended by prominent keynote speakers. The workshops specifically encourage the much needed submission of globally relevant high-quality research papers to leading international journals. WEast also convenes sessions on major international conferences and congresses, in order to promote our regional focus for the global research agenda.