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
- 05 November 2025
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.
Reflecting on the GREATLEAP Workshop: Uncovering the Stories Behind Historical
- 28 September 2025
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
Kristina Thompson receives NWO Veni grant
- 17 July 2025
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
COST spotlights multidisciplinary solutions to health inequalities on World Health
- 09 April 2025
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! 🔗
Budget for 2025 Approved:Main Activities
- 29 November 2024
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.
Katarina Matthes receives SNSF COST Grant
- 08 November 2024
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 1877-2024”
Ingrid van Dijk receives ERC Starting Grant
- 06 September 2024
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
Online Lecture Series ‘An Introduction to Inequalities in Health using
- 30 August 2024
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-death
Historical International Classification for Diseases (ICD10h) published
- 07 August 2024
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: Alice
Article published by Katarina Matthes & Kaspar Staub
- 30 July 2024
Katarina Luise Matthes and@KasparStau Our members Katarina Luise Matthes and Kaspar Staub have published a short commentary ‘The Need to Analyse Historical Mortality Data to Understand
Tim Riswick receives NWO Veni grant
- 28 July 2024
The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant to Tim Riswick for his project ‘Unravelling Health Inequalities. The Historical Roots of Inequality in Death
Maarten van Wijhe receives Sapere Aude DFF-Starting Grant
- 04 July 2024
Maarten van Wijhe is one of the 38 researchers to receive a Sapere Aude: DFF-Starting Grant this year. The project is called “Post-pandemic infectious disease landscapes:
GREATLEAP Kick-off: A Vibrant Start to a Visionary Project
- 09 June 2024
Nijmegen, Netherlands, became a hub of excitement and intellectual synergy on May 2-3, 2024, as the COST Action project “The Great Leap: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Health
Interview with Tim Riswick, COST Action Chair of GREATLEAP
- 25 April 2024
‘I believe team science is the way forward’ – Dr Tim Riswick The first meeting for the COST Action programme, GREATLEAP, will be held on
Events
Information Session and Launch ‘How to publish your GREATLEAP COST Action research with Open Research Europe’
Tuesday 4 November 2025
Calls
Call for Proposals: Workshop ‘Putting mortality on the map. A
- 01 December 2025
University of Copenhagen, August 20th to 21st 2026 It has long been recognized that the mortality transition was shaped by spatial dynamics. The idea of the
Call for proposals: ‘GREATLEAP Conference: Bridging Perspectives and Connecting Threads
- 26 November 2025
We are pleased to invite contributions to the GREATLEAP Conference which will take place on 11-13 May 2026 at Babeș-Bolyai University, Centre for Population Studies, Cluj-Napoca,
Summer Training School: ‘Micro-Census Insights into Historical Households, Mortality and
- 25 November 2025
Cambridge (UK) | 6–17 July 2026 The European Society of Historical Demography (ESHD) and the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop),
Call for Registrations: Health inequalities in history: a Searchathon
- 24 November 2025
Join Archives Portal Europe in a searchathon to find documents about medical history to help The Great Leap You can register here for the Searchaton on
Call for STSM Candidate, University of Zurich, ‘1918-1919 Pandemic’
- 22 October 2025
We are offering an opportunity for a Short-term Scientific Mission (STSM) at the University of Zurich with Dr. Katarina Matthes. The focus of the mission will
Call for Contributions: Session ‘Location of Death’, Society for the
- 21 October 2025
The theme of the Society for the Social History of Medicine biennial conference is ‘In/Out’, it takes place at the University of Leeds, UK, 30 June
Call for Registration: ‘How to publish your GREATLEAP COST Action
- 17 October 2025
📅 Date: Tuesday, 4 November🕚 Time: 11:00 CET📍 Location: Online, via Microsoft Teams🔗 Registration link: Register here We warmly invite you to join us for the
Call for Applications: Summer Training School ‘Health Inequalities: from Sources
- 14 October 2025
Dates: 8-19 June 2026 Location: Centre for Demographic Studies (CED), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain The Centre for Demographic Studies (CED) invites applications for the 2026
Call for Papers Workshops ‘Transcribing the Past: Citizen Scientists and
- 03 September 2025
10:00-17:00, 29 January 2026, MS Teams 9:30-17:00, 26 March 2026, Ghent University, Belgium We are pleased to invite contributions for an one-day virtual workshop and one-day
Call for Papers: Workshop ‘Accuracy of Cause-of-Death Registration: Everyday Conditions,
- 22 August 2025
Thursday 19 – Friday 20 March 2026 | Barcelona, Spain The accurate registration of deaths has long been a challenge for researchers. Crises, such as epidemics, often
2nd Call for Project Proposals Host Institutes
- 18 August 2025
Description To be able to have more impact GREATLEAP opens a Call for Proposals for Host Institutes to create a small project for a visiting scholar
Call for Papers: Workshop ‘Socio-Economic Inequalities in Mortality Over Time’
- 15 August 2025
27 February 2026 | Akoesticum, Ede, the Netherlands There is evidence that the relationship between socio-economic status and health, particularly mortality, is not constant. Depending on
2nd Call for Thematic Workshops (co-organised)
- 14 August 2025
Description To be able to have more impact GREATLEAP opens a Call for Thematic Workshop proposals to officially co-organise events. This call is open for scholars
Call for applications Death, Demography and Digital Health Symposium
- 29 May 2025
The ‘Training Course on Coding Historical Causes of Death’ & ‘Death, Demography and Digital History Symposium’ organized on 22-23 July 2025 at the Caulfield Campus, Monash
Open Call (2025) for Conference Grants and Short-term Scientific Missions
- 07 May 2025
Are you presenting at an important international conference or would like to have a short research stay at a host institute, but lack the financial means
Call for Conference Grants: European Society for Historical Demography Conference
- 11 April 2025
Are you presenting at the European Society for Historical Demography Conference, but lack the financial means to cover travel and accommodation costs? Apply now for a
Call for Registration: Summer School ‘Harmonising and Visualising Data in
- 28 February 2025
This Summer School is designed for early-career researchers engaged in the study of health inequalities through the lens of historical data. Participants will develop advanced skills
Call for Registrations: Mentoring and Networking Event at European Social
- 12 February 2025
Join Us for a Mentoring & Networking Event in Leiden during the ESSHC! Are you looking to expand your academic network and gain valuable mentorship? We
Call for Papers: GREATLEAP Session at the European Association for
- 12 February 2025
We invite submissions for a panel ‘Interpreting social inequalities of health from cause of death data, Europe (1850-1950)’ at the European Association for the History of
Call for Registrations: Workshop ‘Challenging the Leviathan of individual death
- 23 January 2025
The workshop is part of the COST Action project – The Great Leap and is aimed at scholars who are at an early stage of collecting
Call for Applications: Training Course on Coding Historical Causes of
- 17 December 2024
The recently launched ICD10h coding system is designed to support historical demographers and historians in coding historical causes of death. Widespread adoption of this system across
Calls from WG2 working groups
- 17 December 2024
Working Group 2 has moved on the next stages of the work developing ICD10h. There are three strands to this work: Following an initial meeting, we
Call for Applications: MA Course ‘Data Management for Historians’
- 09 December 2024
Are you a PhD or master’s student in economic and social history eager to work with historical records and data? GREATLEAP is has reserved a few
Call for Conference Grants: European Social Science History Conference
- 05 December 2024
Are you presenting at the European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC) in one of the GREATLEAP sponsored session, but lack the financial means to cover travel
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/).