In more than ten years of its existence, the Department of History has undergone significant development. It has become an accepted research center, as can be evidenced by a number of realized important scientific events, by the establishment of a scientific journal, by the success of research and infrastructure projects, or by the interest of scholars (from the United States of America, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Servia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, etc.) to conduct research, study or lecture stays at our Department.
Members of the Department are active in publishing of scholarly works. The results of their research have achieved internationally recognized quality. This may be demonstrated by success in obtaining grant support, and by active cooperation in research with renowned foreign partners (Bauhaus University of Weimar, Universidad de Valladolid, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Nord University, Charles University in Prague, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Collegium Carolinum in Munich and others). In the years 2011 – 2014, the Department was the principal research institution in the strategic project of the International Visegrad Fund “Transformation of Central European Cities in Historical Development”. Subsequently, in 2016 – 2020, the Department belonged to the consortium of recipients of the prestigious grant from the H2020-MSCA Programme focused on the “History of European Urbanism in the 20th century” (urbanHIST). In 2024, the international EURIDICE project, under the European Union´s Digital Programme, started, in which we are one of the 17 consortium members. As part of foreign projects, financial support within the EEA Grants and US Embassy Small Grants schemes may also be mentioned. Among the domestic grants, three completed projects from the APVV scheme (Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic) belong to the largest. The members of the Department have so far solved almost two dozen other projects of VEGA (Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic) and VVGS (Internal grant scheme of UPJŠ).
Since 2012, the Department has been publishing its own scientific journal, “The City and History” [Mesto a dejiny], indexed in the databases Web of Science (ESCI), ERIH Plus, MIAR and others. Besides the journal, the Department also provides the edition “Acta historiae Cassoviensis”, in which series of original scientific works on the history of Košice are published. By the end of 2020, ten such volumes had been issued. In 2016, a project bulletine entitled “urbanHIST Newsletter” was launched on a quarterly basis.
Developing international cooperation is one of the priorities of the Department. Its partners come from the fields of scientific research and education. In addition to the institutions mentioned above, the Department also closely cooperates with the Silesian University in Opava, University of Ostrava, University of Hradec Králové, European University in Rome and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Cooperation with other partners in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Ukraine, as well as with the European Network of Memory and Solidarity is also progressing.
