Summary: African publics have been described as “notoriously” (Mbiti, 1990) and “incurably” (van den Toren, et al, 2020) religious. However, as religious institutions rank number one of 17 institutions on trust levels, scientific institutions also rank in the top four (Falade, 2018) and many prominent religious leaders are also scientists and have established universities. The Redeemer’s University is owned by the Redeemed Christin Church of God while Crescent University was established by the Islamic Mission in Africa, among others. The science and religion relationship in Africa is thus one of a complex coexistence between two competing ways of knowing, and not a zero-sum game. The covid-19 pandemic presented the greatest challenge, in several decades, to this relationship with the constraints imposed on all forms of worship across religious groups; Christians, Muslims and African religions. Sunday church services were barred, Friday Jumaat services were cancelled, programmes for Lent and Ramadan were

Summary: The relationship between science and religion, two systems of knowing, has been debated over the decades with conceptual approaches such as conflict, replacement, parallel forms, coexistence, etc. The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed debates about this relationship following the restrictions placed on religion by science and the reaction of religious leaders and followers to the containment measures. The project seeks to understand the views of religious leaders, and academics at universities in various fields, on the influence (or not) of the pandemic on their beliefs or non-beliefs and what this portends for the future. This project focuses on Africa, a continent with high levels of religious beliefs and where many of the prominent religious leaders were once in the academia as highly qualified and rated scientists. Pastors Adejare Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and Daniel Olukoya of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry, have PhD’s in applied

Summary: Life in contemporary African settings involves negotiating personal and religious values, which may influence attitudes towards science. Using a subset of yet-to-be-determined African countries, this study will investigate: How values vary across and within countries and regions (e,g, West, East and South) in sub-Saharan Africa How these values may be influenced by religious beliefs The relationship between values and religion and concerns about/attitudes towards Our World versus My World (self) The analysis will be informed by social and cultural psychological perspectives about science and belief. We will use data from the World Values Survey (WVS) – a multi-country database that explores people’s values and beliefs, their stability or change over time and their impact on social and political development of the societies in different countries of the world for our empirical Investigation. This project will contribute to the literature on science and belief in the African context. Project deliverables