The Cambridge Interfaith Programme has a long history of innovative research and public engagement projects.
You can read about a small selection of these at the links below.
Language learning in/as Religious Education
A collaboration between Dr Anastasia Badder and Leo Baeck College, this activity explored how religious communities advance language learning and what constitutes a sacred language.
The politics of afterlives: Martyrdom and the making of a transnational Kurdish political community
This project investigated the role that martyrdom plays in the ongoing Kurdish conflict.
Being German, becoming Muslim: race, religion, and conversion
Every year more and more Europeans are embracing Islam, and Islam is also increasingly seen as contrary to European values. This project explores how converts balance their love for Islam with society's fear of it, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today’s Europe.
Religion and the idea of a research university
This project promoted deeper religious literacy in Cambridge and beyond by developing more sophisticated ways of thinking about the public purpose of the university, promoting good global citizenship in a complexly religious and secular world, and by examining how insisting upon the secularity of the university can help protect the inclusive nature of academic life, but can also lead to exclusion.
Scriptural Reasoning in the University
Scriptural Reasoning in the University was an iterative academic collaboration between scholars of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who use the practice of Scriptural Reasoning as a springboard to knowledge exchange and critical reflection.
Shared sacred
Focused on the spatial and temporal modes of proximity between persons and communities of ‘different’ faith, Shared Sacred's outputs include an experimental panel on inter-faith photography for wide audiences, an online exhibition, and an international symposium.
Trans Cosmologies
Trans Cosmologies, a mini-project within the framework of CIP’s Religion and Global Challenges Initiative, brought together anthropologists, theologians, artists and activists who consider the role of religion in trans lifeworlds. It built on the core CIP concerns with religious relations, encounters and multivocality, inherently critical of hegemonic political structuring.
Interpreting interreligious relations with Wittgenstein
This project explored the relevance of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of religion for present and future research on interreligious relations.
A Common Word
CIP was deeply involved in A Common Word, a statement of peace and friendship issued in October 2007 and signed by more than 130 Muslim scholars from all traditions, and addressed to Christian leaders around the world.
Effective community policing
In partnership with the University of Leeds and the Metropolitan Police Service, this research project showed that neighbourhood policing teams can make a real difference to community cohesion by learning about religion in their local contexts and being aware of the difference it makes to everyday life.