Summary: The project will set up a research network for the study of the relationships of science, and belief in Latin American societies.

Network’s aims are:

• To analyse regional research agendas on the relationships and impact of science and belief in Latin American societies.
• To improve public communication capacities of Latin American researchers working on the field of science and belief.
• To raise awareness about the importance and future perspectives of the research field.

Although there are several networks in Latin America, up to our knowledge, there is not any fostering and supporting research on science and beliefs from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Recent research (Kantis & Angelelli, 2020) shows that Latin American research ecosystems encounter several barriers: lack of entrepreneurial approach and training among researchers, mismatch with local problems and needs, lack of research agendas, financial and normative instability. Simultaneously, geographical distance to conferences and networks venues, lack of calendar coordination and financial constraints make researchers international participation harder.

The following universities will be involved: Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre Y Maestra (Dominican Republic), Montevideo (Uruguay), Universidad Católica San Pablo (Peru), Casa Grande (Ecuador), UNIS (Guatemala), Panamericana (Mexico), Universidad de Navarra (Spain).

We will undertake the following main activities:

• Researchers’ data organization for developing a crowdsourced database.
• Audio-visual contents production and dissemination.
• Organization and reporting of the first Latin American experts meeting on the relationships of science, religion and non-religion in society.

Networks members will create an asynchronous short online training course on Science, Belief and Public Communication for Latin American scientists.

The experts meeting final report will be freely available in the network’s website and https://osf.io/ for future usage in other projects on science and belief.

All the activities will actively involve:

• Researchers, who will benefit in terms of networking and resources opportunities.
• Partner university professors: they will participate in network’s collaborative learning activities.

In order to include new people to our network we will:

• Create an International Advisory Board.
• Invite scholars and experts to contribute with our social media platforms.
• Promote activities organized by other universities on issues related to the study of science and belief.

Medium, YouTube and Spotify channels will be key in social media promotion.

Our activities will leave two main legacies beyond the end of the grant:

• An online network of researchers that share a common interest on science, belief and society.
• A Latin American hub of resources with a focus on the study and promotion of the relationships between science and belief.