Bernhard Struck is Reader in Modern History at the University of St Andrew, co-founder of the Institute for Transnational and Spatial History, and member of the ESF Advisory Board. Taking an explicit local and regional starting point, his own research around Esperanto focuses on Scotland, the Midlands, Saxony, and Bohemia in the early twentieth century. Beyond the transregional focus around these four hot bed Esperanto regions, his current interests revolve around Esperanto congresses and experts as ‘epistemic communities’ including doctors, architects, city planners in the Esperanto movement. At a local level, his research seeks to understand as to why certain regions (for instance eastern Bohemia or parts of Scotland) attracted high numbers of Esperanto speakers – whereas others did less so. What drove these ‘local internationalists’ to the language in more peripheral or marginal places is key to his current project.