The Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Privacy Studies (PRIVACY) was established in September 2017 through a generous grant of 50 Mio. DKK (approx. 6.7 Mio. Euro) from the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF) .

The PRIVACY research team will examine how no­tions of privacy shape relations between individuals and society across diverse historical contexts. We are particularly interested in indications of privacy as a quality and risk:  in the emergence and development of the idea that too little privacy threatens the individual while too much may ruin society.

PRIVACY focuses on the period 1500–1800 that sees critical changes in individuals’ relationship to society. It brings together the fields of Church History, History of Architecture, Legal History and History of Ideas.

PRIVACY’s scholarly goals are grounded in the overall aim to launch privacy studies as a new re­search field.

We aim to develop

• systematized historical knowledge of dynamics that shape, induce or curb privacy in society,
• an interdisciplinary method equipped to grasp such dy­namics and
• a strong and vibrant international research environment dedicated to high-profile historical research and equipped to incite a much broader investigation of privacy.

PRIVACY brings together the fields of Church History, Architectural History, Legal History and the History of Ideas in a novel interdisciplinary approach based on disciplinary integrationand site-based analysis.

Our principal focus rests with the period 1500-1800. The wider aim of PRIVA­CY is, however, to mobilize knowledge of past notions of privacy as a resource that can help decode the intrica­cies of present concerns related to the indi­vidual’s place in society.