In 2007 the RSC entered into a cooperative arrangement with Plymouth University in the UK to encourage and support undergraduate students of American history to come to Middelburg to use the Center’s research facilities. This successful relationship, co-sponsored by both institutions, has seen some sixty Plymouth students and several of the university’s staff make use of the resources in Middelburg.
Following its relaunch in 2017, the RIAS happily continued this successful program. Plymouth is unique in the RIAS’ international network in that, thanks to U.S. history lecturer Simon Topping, it now makes use of the Institute’s collections as a built-in part of its undergraduate history program.
The research topics of the Plymouth visitors have ranged from Civil Rights and the Vietnam War to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Space Race, and Cold War Intelligence. The results of this venture into undergraduate research have been so impressive that in 2011 a dissertation prize was created as a reward for the best output from the exchange program.