About
To this day and age, deep-routed, structural inequalities in health have been one of the most consistent and pressing challenges society has faced. Recent events, such as the COVID19 pandemic highlight the urgent need for new research, insights and action to tackle this challenge for future generations. Embracing the COST Mission, the Great Leap takes a unique, multidisciplinary approach from a historical perspective to gain a greater understanding of the roots and drivers of health inequalities across regions and countries in Europe and beyond. To achieve this mission, the Great Leap creates an international, multidisciplinary network that will bundle expertise, techniques, insights and data to create (1) the first international comparable dataset of individual-level historical cause of death data, (2) innovative analytical tools to analyse it, and (3) insights into how this information can be used in current public health policy and practice.
For more information about this specific project, find out more on the COST-Action website.
News
Budget for 2026 Approved:Main Activities
The COST Association has officially approved the 2025 budget for the GREATLEAP project, enabling the team to move forward with its planned activities for the year. This milestone m
Reflecting on the GREATLEAP Workshop: Uncovering the Stories Behind Historical Deaths
By Edward Morgan I couldn’t have asked for a more invigorating start to the 6th Conference of the European Society of Historical Demography in Bologna than our pre-conference
Kristina Thompson receives NWO Veni grant
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to Kristina Thompson for her project ‘Understanding the causes of widening socio-economic health inequities in the Nethe
COST spotlights multidisciplinary solutions to health inequalities on World Health Day
We’re proud to share that our GREATLEAP COST Action is now featured on the official COST Association – European Cooperation in Science and Technology website! 🔗 Read the
Katarina Matthes receives SNSF COST Grant
The SNSF COST Grant grant has been awarded to support a groundbreaking project in Switzerland titled “Socio-demographic inequalities in the causes of death in Switzerland 1877-20
Ingrid van Dijk receives ERC Starting Grant
Ingrid van Dijk, Associate senior lecturer at the Department of Economic History at LUSEM and researcher at the Centre for Economic Demography at Lund University, receives an ERC S
Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’
From October onwards we are organizing a Lecture series that will provide a introduction to studying inequalities in health using a long-term historical perspective and causes-of-d
Historical International Classification for Diseases (ICD10h) published
On Tuesday 27 July 2024 the Historical International Classification for Diseases (ICD10h) was launched, in which 76 scholars participated. Now all documents are available online: A
Events
Calls
Call for Papers: Workshop “Aftermath of a Pandemic: Changes in Mortality and Health”
January 28 – 29, 2027, at Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Pilestredet 46, Norway Pandemics are transformative events that leave lasting marks on population health, mortality,
Call for Papers: Digital Humanities track at ISoLA 2026
Following the very successful previous events for 2023 to 2025 we are delighted to extend an invitation to you to submit an abstract to the Digital Humanities track at the AISo
Call for Digital Humanities track at the AISoLA 2026 Conference
Following the very successful previous events for 2023 to 2025 we are delighted to extend an invitation to you to submit an abstract to the Digital Humanities track at the AISo
Call for Applications: Communications Masterclass WG5
We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the WG5 Communications Masterclass, taking place 24–28 August 2026 at the RSU Anatomy Museum and Rīga Stradiņš Uni
The Special Collection ‘Socio-Economic Inequalities in Mortality in the Long-Run’ in Demographic Research aims to bring together research investigating long-run changes
The 16th European Social Science History Conference will take place 21–24 April 2027 in Lyon, France, and is hosted by ENS. We are aiming for sessions on ‘Epidemics and Con
Open Call for Publication Support
GREATLEAP members have the opportunity to publish their research free of charge in the Open Research Europe Special Collection “Multidisciplinary approaches to historical health
Call for Papers Workshop ‘Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) interventions – the long view’
Cambridge, June 15-16 2026 Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) interventions have saved millions of lives over the last century. The WHO estimates that three-quarters of the globa
We are offering an opportunity for a Short-term Scientific Mission (STSM) with Dr Catherine Drysdale (Lancaster University). The focus of the mission will be on “A Demographic Ke
Training Materials
Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using Historical Causes of Death’
From October 2025 to June 2026 on Friday afternoon 14:00-16:00
COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation (https://www.cost.eu/).
