A variety of cutting-edge research projects are currently being conducted by researchers affiliated with the Cambridge Interfaith Programme.
CIP Religion and Global Challenges Initiative
The CIP Religion and Global Challenges Initiative seeks to generate tangible and sustainable solutions to worldwide problems by deepening understanding of the role that religious communities play – and could play – in exacerbating or in alleviating such problems. It will bring together theologians, social and natural scientists and religious communities to think through the most pressing global challenges facing us today.
Scripture & Violence
Scripture & Violence seeks to illuminate the complex relationship between scriptural texts and real-world acts of violence, challenging assumptions that are commonly held in the public sphere. Free group discussion resources and guides are available.
Holocaust Memory and Muslims in Germany
This is the first ever major study to analyse and propose ways of improving Holocaust education programs designed for Muslims.
God and Human Speech
Theologians and empirical scientists collaborate in the area of psychology and language. Dr Daniel Weiss is Co-Investigator on this Templeton Foundation-funded grant, led by Dr Joanna Leidenhag at the University of Leeds.
Language learning in/as Religious Education
A collaboration between Dr Anastasia Badder and Leo Baeck College, this activity explores how religious communities advance language learning and what constitutes a sacred language.
Material approaches and interfaith encounter
Bringing together academics across disciplines, interfaith practitioners, and educators, this strand of research activity is strongly practice-linked, asking about the role of objects in religious encounter.
Religion as a conflict driver in Ethiopia
Funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Dr Jörg Haustein leads this project exploring interactions between religion, ethnicity and other parameters at five sites in Ethiopia.
Trans Cosmologies
An emerging research strand within the framework of CIP’s Religion and Global Challenges Initiative, Trans Cosmologies brings together anthropologists, theologians, artists and activists to consider the role of religion in trans lifeworlds. It builds on the core CIP concerns with religious relations, encounters and multivocality, inherently critical of hegemonic political structuring.
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.
TRACTS: Traces as Research Agenda for Climate Change, Technology Studies, and Social Justice
Funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (£500,000), this four-year project brings together scholars from disciplines of the social sciences and humanities with artists, decolonial activists, memorialization experts and legal professionals to bridge current cultural, political and geographical gaps in research on traces.
Turkish-Armenian Relations
Together with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Cambridge Interfaith Programme is hosting a scheme with postdoctoral researchers focused on relations between Turkey and Armenia, including historical and contemporary perspectives. Throughout 2021–2023, these scholars are carrying out fresh research, and developing skills to share their learning in the media and with policy-makers.
Water Efficiency in Faith and Diverse Communities
Funded through the Ofwat Innovation Fund, this is a multi-partner project. The Cambridge Interfaith Programme has responsibility for an academic research phase, combining interviews and desk-based research to deepen understanding of how diverse religious communities in Cambridge engage with water use.
RedGold & Bosnian Muslim Saints
Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović is a contributing researcher on this four-year project, led by Professor Stéphane A. Dudoignon (CNRS/GSRL) and Professor Marie-Paule Hille (EHESS/CCJ) and supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR). The project is concerned with sainthood in action in societies characterised by both communist pasts and religious pluralism, with special interest in Islam. Dr HadžiMuhamedović's personal project has the working title 'Tracing Dobri: Bosnian Muslim Saints in Political Turmoil'.
Making British Islam Across Generations
How do different generations of Muslims understand what it means to be a Muslim in the UK? This is a collaboration between University of Cambridge Divinity Faculty and the Everyday Muslim Heritage and Archive Initiative.
Bosnian Sacred Landscapes
A long-term investigation of sacred landscapes shared by different Bosnian communities of faith after the 1990s conflict, with special focus on the Dinaric highlands.
Entangled otherings: Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Racism
Sponsored by the German Research Exchange programme (DAAD), this three-year project explores the complicated relationships between antisemitism, islamophobia, and other kinds of racism and discrimination.