After a fruitful and lively kick-off conference in Rotterdam in November 2009 and a wonderful second conference in Frankfurt am Main in November 2010, a third Transnational Rhine Conference will be organized at the Institute for Social Movements-Ruhr University, Bochum. This next conference focuses on the move from coal to petrochemical feedstock of the Rhine Industry. It aims to explore the rise of an oil based economy and its consequences for the transnational economic region from Rotterdam to Basel from the 1950s up to the 1970s. In order to achieve its research programme on these and related issues, the organisers endeavour to build a transnational network, consisting of economist, economic and business historians, as well as historians of technology, in the first place coming from the countries along the Rhine and its delta, however not exclusively. To explore the long-term economic development of the Rhine region the organisers have selected five different themes, i.e.: Oil as a New Basis; Chemical Clusters; European Integration and the Rhine Economy; Transport and Logistics; the Rhine as an Environmental System. At the beginning of the summer the organizing committee will send a formal invitation as well as a complete programme of the conference. For more information please contact Ralf Banken (Ralf.Banken@t-online.de ) or Ben Wubs (wubs@eshcc.eur.nl ).