Professor Robert Saldin named Leverhulme Visiting Professor for 2026-27

It gives us great pleasure to announce that the RAI will be hosting a Leverhulme Visiting Professor next academic year. 

Professor Robert Saldin of the University of Montana, a political scientist with expertise in US foreign policy-making, will be coming to Oxford to research the role of the Clinton administration and a broader network of US political actors in the Northern Ireland peace process. The Leverhulme Trust is an independent charity funding research in UK universities. We are absolutely delighted that Professor Saldin has won one of their competitive Visiting Professorships.

Professor Saldin will work closely with our colleagues  in the Quill Project, based at Pembroke College, which has pioneered innovative digital models for understanding negotiated texts such as the Good Friday Agreement. During his year in Oxford, Professor Saldin will work with the Quill team to create a blueprint for understanding the US dimension of the peace process. For the first time, British, Irish, and American materials on the making of the Good Friday Agreement will be brought together in a single, accessible digital archive, providing a more comprehensive historical record for researchers and illuminating contested provisions, mediation strategies, and negotiation processes. 

Professor Saldin will deliver a Leverhulme Lecture on his findings here at the RAI during Trinity Term 2027 and will give papers at other universities around the country, including Queen’s University, Belfast.