Grant to Support Research on Empirical, Conceptual, and Interpretive Work on the Interconnections between Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs

Randall Stephens

As many of the readers of this blog and Historically Speaking know, the Historical Society has launched the Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs (RIHA) Program. "It will provide up to $2 million in research support for empirical, conceptual, and interpretive work exploring interconnections between religion and innovation in history and human affairs."

Program leader Donald Yerxa says:

I have been working on the proposal for RIHA for a year. And now that it is beginning to be announced, I am gratified by the positive responses I’ve received from prominent scholars in several fields. One can get a sense of the intellectual seriousness and expansiveness of the project by looking at RIHA’s distinguished board of advisors. They include intellectual historian Wilfred McClay (UTenn-Chattanooga), historian of science William Shea (Padua), economic historian Patrick O’Brien (London School of Economics), archaeologist Ian Hodder (Stanford), geographer David Livingstone (Queen’s Belfast), and physician/medical ethicist William Hurlbut (Stanford Medical Center). RIHA is a terrific opportunity for the Historical Society. It puts the Society in the forefront of an exciting intellectual project, one that promises to shed light on how religion and innovation have interconnected.

The website, which I've been building for the last few weeks, is now nearly filled out. (We will add material on a "2013 Workshop" and "Funded Projects" later.)

Go to the site to download the Request for Proposals (deadline for pre-proposals is November 1, 2011), and view Application Information, members of the Distinguished Advisory Board, and the Program Staff and Contact Information.

The Historical Society Announces a Competitive RFP-Based Research Program

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Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs: Exploring the Role of Religion in the Origins of Novelty and the Diffusion of Innovation in the Progress of Civilizations

With generous funding from the John Templeton Foundation, the Historical Society is launching a major interdisciplinary grants program in September 2011. It will provide $2.0 million in research support for empirical, conceptual, and interpretive work exploring the role religion may play as a driving force of innovation in human affairs.

The competitive RFP-based research program will award approximately 15 two-year grants of $100,000 each and a few larger grants of $250,000 to support archaeological fieldwork and traditional social science and historical investigation, as well as conceptually-oriented analysis.

Donald A. Yerxa will serve as the Program Leader for Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs. And a distinguished board of advisers will be announced this summer.

A request for proposals will be forthcoming later this summer. For more information, visit the RIHA website (under construction) at www.bu.edu/historic/riha

The John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org) serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. The Foundation supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. It encourages civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights. The Foundation’s vision is derived from the late Sir John Templeton's optimism about the possibility of acquiring “new spiritual information” and from his commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. Its motto, "How little we know, how eager to learn," exemplifies its support for open-minded inquiry and our hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries.