The Religion, Science, and Society funding area will support research on culture, religious traditions, and spirituality to advance our collective understanding of the ways in which religious and spiritual beliefs and practices affect human flourishing and to apply those insights to society in meaningful and practical ways.

This funding area will encourage research that engages substantively and critically with the sciences, including robust interdisciplinary collaborations in which philosophical or theological understanding informs the findings and methods of the sciences.

What can we learn from the world’s wisdom traditions about living good and purposeful lives? How do we lead lives of meaning and purpose in the context of cultural evolution and technological change? How are religious beliefs and practices changing in the world today? What does it mean to be spiritual, and how does spirituality impact beliefs, values, and customs? Can religion and spirituality help address global challenges?

Supported work will draw from a range of fields and intellectual, religious, and spiritual traditions. Proposals should demonstrate exceptional promise to transform understanding at the frontiers of human knowledge or have high potential to meet critical methodological or conceptual challenges.

Religion, Science, and Society will encompass the Foundation’s ongoing grant-related efforts in these existing funding initiatives:

• Health, Religion, and Spirituality
• Understanding the Dynamics of Religious Change
• The Spiritual Yearning Research Initiative