Trans-Imperial Strategies for Keeping Medicines as Private Assets from 1500 to 1900

Secrets to Patents at the Vestigia Conference in Zagreb

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cecilialundstroma14299876b

20 May 2026

During the Pro Tempore arranged Vestigia Conference at the University of Zagreb, the projects’ Cecilia Lundström presented on egodocument research.

The Secrets to Patents project relies to a large extent on egodocument, as much of the source material consists of letters or similar. Egodocuments are important to lift, study and discuss as a material for everyone, and especially researchers of history and adjacent subjects.

The project would also like to send their gratitudes to Pro Tempore for a well-arranged conference!

The Project

The Research Environment Secrets to Patents investigates the long-term history of how life-saving and health-improving medicines became for-profit commodities from 1500 to 1900. Focusing on the Atlantic Colonial Nexus, the project’s team will investigate the strategies that different historical agents used to claim ownership of medicinal knowledge.

Funding

Secrets to Patents has been generously funded by the Swedish Research Council (2025-2030) and hosted at Lund University (SE), in collaboration with the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen (DK) and the History Department of Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (BR).

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