AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) – CDP4 Cohort 2026/27. Call for HEI Partners/Academic Supervisors.
Research theme: Cold War Socialism, Non-Alignment and Anti-Colonialism in the Yugoslav Press, 1961–1979
British Library Co-Supervisors:
Milan Grba (Lead Curator Southeast European Collections, Western Heritage)
Savka Andic (Acquisition South, Special Collections Metadata)
Context and summary
This collaborative doctoral project proposes an innovative investigation into Yugoslavia's multifaceted role during the Cold War, specifically its involvement with the Non-Aligned Movement and anti-colonial efforts. The project centres on the recently digitised and largely unexamined Joint Translation Service (JTS) bulletins, a sole archive housed at the British Library.
The project's core purpose is to apply advanced digital methods and interdisciplinary research to the Joint Translation Service Archive, uncovering fresh insights into Cold War socialism and anti-colonialism from a Yugoslav perspective, and aiming to understand how Yugoslavia, a founding Non-Aligned Movement member, forged a 'third way'. The student will be engaged in creating a fully digitally searchable Joint Translation Service resource, deriving new datasets, and helping to establish a global network of Non-Aligned Movement-related archives with a view to creating a digital repository. These outputs will provide British Library users with multiple entry points into a collection of approximately a quarter of a million pages of previously unknown primary source material, including enhanced catalogue records and new interpretive guides, while embedding innovative digital methods within the British Library.
This Joint Translation Service archive, acquired in 2012, comprises 253 boxes and bound volumes of English translations of Yugoslav press summaries from 1953 to 1989. This “research ready” collection, already digitised into PDF, is primed for digital exploration and the student will be supported throughout by the British Library's European Collections and Digital Research teams. By investigating this unique, unexamined primary source, this project seeks to offer a vital corrective to 'orthodox histories of the Cold War', emphasizing Yugoslavia’s profound engagement with the Global South, unlocking more inclusive historical narratives.
Research areas
We would like to invite proposals which engage with one or more of the following research areas and/or approaches:
Historical and political history
At its core, the project will delve into Yugoslavia’s global role in the Cold War, emphasizing its advocacy of non-alignment, anti-colonialism, and support for newly independent nations and liberation movements.
This directly challenges 'orthodox histories of the Cold War' that primarily focus on bipolarity between the West and the East, aligning the project with a resurgence of scholarly interest in the Non-Aligned Movement. The research will explore how Yugoslavia charted a 'third way' in navigating Cold War political dynamics, analysing Yugoslavia’s diplomatic initiatives, regional leadership aspirations, and contributions to global peace and development from 1961, when the Non-Aligned Movement was inaugurated in Belgrade to the 1979 Non-Aligned Movement conference in Havana.
Digital humanities
The research will be underpinned by a combination of traditional and digital methods for analysing large datasets. The digital copy of the Joint Translation Service bulletins will be enhanced with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to create a digitally searchable resource. Subsequently, it will utilise “distant reading” methods, including amongst others sentiment analysis (to understand the evolving positionality of press discourse), word vector searches (to understand keyword usage and frequency), and topic modelling (to identify the prevalence of specific topics over time). The student will be expected to produce derived datasets from the material and publish short data papers describing the research parameters, methods, and outcomes. The methodological developments will contribute to the British Library’s wider efforts in working with large historical datasets and will provide models for similar collections.
Media and discourse analysis
Through an analysis of Yugoslav press discourse, this project explores how Yugoslavia positioned itself as the sole European Non-Aligned Movement member (excluding Cyprus) outside of the Global South. How did the press portray the nation's activities as a supporter of global anti-colonialism? How did this discourse relate to Yugoslavia’s identity as a socialist, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, modernized, and industrialized state with a history of anti-imperial liberation struggles? Such research could involve elements of discourse analysis, content analysis, gap analysis of the JTS selection against the wider media context, and historical contextualization, correlating press coverage with specific historical events, political developments, and international relations.
Cultural diplomacy and transnationalism
The project also charts the development and evolution of a transnational culture among Non-Aligned Movement members, a culture which served as an expression of indigenous identity and a vehicle to counter Western cultural hegemony. How did Yugoslav cultural production diplomacy foster transnational solidarity? How did that impact on Yugoslavia’s internal identity and evolution?
Archival studies and collection histories
The project directly engages with collection histories by analysing the sources, selection criteria, and priorities of the Joint Translation Service bulletins using primary source material. This includes understanding why the Joint Translation Service collection was originally created in Belgrade for diplomatic and cultural missions and how it monitored major Yugoslav print media. Furthermore, the project will contextualise this unique collection within the British Library’s broader holdings through the creation of bibliographies and collection guides. The focus on a collection that was “destined for disposal” highlights the critical engagement with issues of preservation, representation, and inclusion/exclusion in historical scholarship, challenging historical “amnesia” around socialist Yugoslavia and its connections with the Global South. The collection will be situated within the global archival context, collaborating with organisations worldwide around a potential digital repository mapping Non-Aligned Movement-related archives and resources.
Benefits and training opportunities for the CDP student
The student will benefit from access to a unique collection of historically significant primary sources that have been previously inaccessible to the public. The computational methods envisaged for the digitized version are only possible and fully supported via a collaborative doctoral partnership. Beyond digital humanities expertise, the student will benefit from collaborating with supervisors and curators, who can help navigate the vast complementary collections within the Library, especially where language expertise is required, as well as navigate the collections and networks beyond the British Library.
Academically, the research is interdisciplinary and transnational, anchored in a topic that is of increasing importance and interest. In terms of skills, the student will be trained in and will test an array of computational approaches, with the added organisational responsibility of writing up those experiments for the benefit of future research at the library. And, in promoting the research and connecting to wider archives, the student may choose to develop skills in public engagement, organising events, conferences and other cultural outputs.
There will be clear linguistic opportunities to study or improve knowledge of South Slavonic languages. The student will have ample opportunities to learn about ongoing research trends in European and Southeast European studies, as well as about resources for research and study in these areas beyond the British Library. Additionally, the British Library's ongoing professional development programme, including talks, seminars, and networking events, will be available to the student.
Application deadline
Friday 28 November 2025, 5pm
Application guidance
Further information and details of how to apply.
Contact for queries
British Library Research Development Office – Postgraduate inbox
pgr@bl.uk
and
Milan Grba, Lead Curator Southeast European Collections, European Collections, Western Heritage
milan.grba@bl.uk