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

Publications

You can find the latest publications by our team in the links below:

Natacha Klein Käfer: https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/persons/natacha-klein-kafer

Beatriz Teixeira Weber: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0775-9928

Paolo Astorri: https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/persons/paolo-astorri

Secrets to Patents

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).

Remain in touch with the project’s activities and publications