Calleva Centre

About us

The Calleva Centre is an interdisciplinary research centre based at Magdalen College, Oxford. Our work promotes deeper understanding of the origins, development, causes, and functions of human behaviour, as well as the grand challenges faced by humanity. We were founded in 2010 as the Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Science. This was the result of a generous donation from an Old Member of Magdalen College. We were recently re-established in 2022 under our director, Professor Robert Gilbert.

What we do

The Calleva Centre has two goals. One is to fund and support interdisciplinary research projects led by Fellows at Magdalen College. The other is to fund and support interdisciplinary research engagement opportunities at the College and around Oxford. These include academic working groups, as well as public lectures like our termly Calleva Seminars.

In the past, the Centre has awarded grants to teams of Magdalen Fellows across many disciplines in many combinations, including anthropology, biochemistry, classics, economics, evolutionary biology, history, neuroscience, literature, and psychology. We are also advised by an external Advisory Board with a similarly wide diversity of expertise.

We currently support 9 grants that are in various stages of progress. Across our grants, the Centre usually supports several postdoctoral researchers and PhD students, in addition to its affiliated Fellows. You can find out more about our researchers here.

You can find out about applying for one of our grants or vacant researcher positions here. You can also sign up to our mailing list to hear about each new Calleva Centre event!