CASA DE VELAZQUEZ

Their core work

Casa de Velázquez is a prestigious French research institute based in Madrid, operating under the French Ministry of Higher Education as part of France's network of foreign schools abroad (alongside institutions like the École française de Rome). It functions as a residential research center hosting scholars in humanities and social sciences, with a strong specialization in Iberian, Latin American, and early modern European history. Their EU-funded work centers on historical analysis of social structures, legal institutions, and the long-term dynamics of failure, marginalization, and colonial governance. They bring together archival expertise, comparative historical methodology, and an internationally connected network of humanities researchers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects launched in 2019, so the timeline spans a single cohort rather than a long developmental arc. That said, there is a visible thematic shift between the two: REVFAIL engages with social and cultural history — failure, biography, marginalized communities, Latin America — while COLEX moves into institutional and legal terrain, focusing on legislation, coopetition, and decision-making processes in the Spanish Netherlands. This suggests CVZ's research agenda spans both the human experience of empire (social history) and its formal mechanisms (legal history), with the coordinator role on COLEX pointing toward growing institutional confidence in the legal-historical domain.

CVZ appears to be deepening a dual research track — socio-cultural history of marginalization alongside institutional legal history — making them a strong fit for consortia addressing governance, heritage, or the long-term social consequences of legal systems.

How they like to work

CVZ takes both leading and participating roles, having coordinated COLEX and joined as a partner in the larger REVFAIL network, which suggests flexibility in consortium positioning. With 14 unique partners across 10 countries from just 2 projects, they punch above their weight in network breadth — this is typical of MSCA schemes that require international mobility and multi-site collaboration. They appear to operate as a hub for humanities researchers rather than a loyal repeat-partner with a fixed circle.

CVZ has built a notably wide network for a small institution — 14 partners across 10 countries from only two projects. The MSCA-RISE format of REVFAIL in particular drives geographic spread, with researcher exchanges across multiple European and Latin American institutions.

What sets them apart

Casa de Velázquez occupies a rare institutional niche: a French research center physically embedded in Spain, giving it dual access to French academic networks and the Iberian and Latin American research ecosystem. This cross-cultural positioning makes it a natural bridge institution for projects that require Spanish, French, or Latin American archival expertise and scholarly networks. For humanities consortia needing a credible anchor in Madrid with international reach, there are very few comparable institutions.

Highlights from their portfolio

• REVFAIL
  The largest of CVZ's H2020 projects (€326,600, running until 2024), it tackles the counterintuitive history of failure and social exclusion across Iberian empires — an unusual and high-visibility humanities theme with strong public engagement potential.
• COLEX
  CVZ's sole coordinator role in H2020, demonstrating their capacity to lead a research consortium focused on the intersection of legal history and political economy in early modern Europe.