Charles University has secured, as part of a consortium led by the Utrecht University, funding for an ambitious project called „Colonial Legacies of Universities: Materialities and New Collaborations“ (COLUMN). This initiative is co-financed by the EU Horizon Europe Programme and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI), with a total budget of €4,483,595. The first phase will be coordinated by Prof. Markéta Křížová from the Centre for Ibero-American Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.
Charles University will lead the project’s initial phase together with colleagues from the Mexican Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). Under the guidance of Professor Křížová, the international team will examine the impact of European colonial expansion on the development of science as well as scientific and academic institutions. In the following phase of the project, researchers from the Charles University will – in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Bologna and the University of Pretoria – contribute to research of a number of collections of physical anthropology, their histories, and new ways of presentation.
Under the leadership of Associate Professor Gertjan Plets from the Utrecht University, COLUMN brings together nine academic and cultural institutions from eight countries. The aim of the project is to investigate the colonial histories of European universities and to develop strategies to address and reinterpret this heritage to European public. Central to this effort is collaboration with institutions from formerly colonised regions based on the principle of equitable partnerships. Only in this way, we can hope to transform the long-established, entrenched historical narratives.
The colonial era had significantly shaped the growth of European universities. Its legacy includes material traces such as buildings named after controversial figures, museum collections, and botanical gardens, but it has also crucially contributed to the development of natural sciences and humanities. The COLUMN project will explore these unique, often controversial histories, and examine how the involvement in colonial enterprises manifests itself at present.
In an era of increasingly globalised science, efforts aimed at decolonisation present an opportunity for a transformative change of European universities. Institutions across Asia, Africa, and South America are gaining prominence in the world of knowledge production but their involvement in international scientific cooperation is being complicated by the complex intellectual and material legacy of the colonial period. „International collaboration is essential to a decolonisation of scientific heritage and ultimately a transformation of universities,“ said the project leader Dr. Gertjan Plets.
Running from April 2025 to March 2029, the project includes partners from Suriname (Anton De Kom University of Suriname), the Netherlands (Utrecht University and Studio Louter), Austria (Graz University), South Africa (University of Pretoria), Switzerland (Geneva University), the Czech Republic (Charles University), Italy (University of Bologna), and Denmark (Aarhus University). Specific tasks will also be realised in cooperation with curators and academics from Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and other non-European countries.
Professor Křížová is convinced that research into the colonial legacy of universities will ultimately also greatly benefit the Czech academia. „The Czech Lands, as well as the rest of Europe, were entangled in and benefitted from the complex web of economic, political, and cultural processes brought about by the overseas colonisation of the Modern Era’, she explained. ‘This involvement also had a profound impact on the development of intellectual life. One could mention some obvious traces, such as the imagery of racial inequality, but also certain more subtle ones, which remain present in how knowledge is organised and hierarchised. The COLUMN project, which is based on a multifaceted cooperation among various European and non-European institutions, will help us strengthen respect for human rights and democracy,“ she concluded.
