TASTADE will identify and study the tens of thousands of people who financed the transatlantic traffic in enslaved African people to appreciate their significance for European development – not just financially, but culturally, and politically. Up to now, the study of the significance of the traffic has been hampered by national research silos and fixated on determining the traffic’s profitability. This project synergises the expertise of leading scholars based in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Brazil into a pan-European and circum-Atlantic perspective on the traffic’s role in shaping commercial, financial, political, and cultural change. This large grant will form a 36-person research team to deliver not just a new empirical foundation for scientific and public debates on the impact of the trafficking of enslaved Africans on Europe, but also a transformed understanding of the multidimensional role the traffickers of these people played in European development.
Professor William Pettigrew, Department of History
09 July 2026
William Pettigrew joins King's with major grant to examine how the trafficking of enslaved African people shaped Europe's development
King's Department of History welcomes Professor William Pettigrew to lead €10 million research project to identify and study the people who financed the transatlantic slave trade.
Professor William Pettigrew joins the Deaprtment of History from Lancaster University’s School of Global Affairs to undertake TASTADE (The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Development of Europe), a global scientific collaboration.
The grant has created seven new jobs: four PhD studentships, two postdoctoral research fellowships, and a project manager. The team includes Free University Amsterdam, University of Côte d'Azur, France, Federal Fluminense, Brazil and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. TASTADE inaugurated the first scientific collaboration between the ERC and a Brazilian university.
TASTADE is one of only 66 research teams, selected from 712 proposals, bringing together 239 researchers, to receive a share of €684 million in ERC Synergy Grants to tackle some of the most challenging questions across a broad range of fields.
The selected projects will be carried out at universities and research centres in 26 countries across Europe and beyond.
The arrival of William Pettigrew is an important moment for the Department of History. Author of Global Trade and the Shaping of English Freedom (Oxford, 2023), among many other publications, Professor Pettigrew has an established reputation for world-leading historical research. His appointment further consolidates King’s formidable international reputation in early modern British and World History. His new €10 million ERC-funded project will have a transformative impact on our understanding of the effects on European societies of the largest forced oceanic migration in human history: the transatlantic slave trade. As Head of Department, I am tremendously excited to be welcoming Professor Pettigrew to King’s.
Professor Paul Readman, Head of Department, History
Professor Pettigrew is an expert historian on Britain's contribution to the transatlantic traffic in enslaved African people, with expertise both in the traffic managed by joint stock companies and the leaders of the 'free trade' in enslaved Africans.
The ERC Synergy Grants foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to combine their expertise, knowledge and resources to push the boundaries of knowledge. This funding is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research.