From 7-9 July 2021 we held our annual INSBS conference, STEMM and Belief in Diverse Contexts: Publics, Praxis, Policy and Pluralism. Postponed in 2020 and held online in 2021 because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, in this post three of our members from Africa reflect on their online conference experience. Belief and Science is not always a Toxic Combination By Ganiyat…
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STEMM and Belief in Diverse Contexts: Publics, Praxis, Policy and Pluralism Online conference, 7-9 July 2021 This conference took place from 7-9 July 2021 online. The final programme can be found at the following Download link: INSBS-Conference-2021-Final-ProgrammeDownload Included in the Programme are the following two plenary events. These are public lectures. Intersectional Approaches to Diversity in STEMM: Belief, Culture, and Inclusion The lack of diversity…
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Online conference, 7-9 July 2021 Conference format Due to constraints imposed by COVID 19, this conference will be entirely online. Sessions will be held throughout the day in order to enable people from different time zones to participate. Participants will be given the option of pre-recording their presentations, with recordings being submitted in advance of the conference dates. If you have any questions or concerns about access or the conference…
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By Stephen H. Jones and Paula Brikci On 5th February, the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society launched a call for grants to support the development of regional academic networks. In this blog, drawing on the insights of scholars from across the field, Stephen H. Jones and Paula Brikci look at what makes a good academic network and what anyone thinking of establishing…
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Update 16 March: Call for Papers is now closed. Online conference, 7-9 July 2021 In the last decade, there has been significant growth in social scientific and humanities research focusing on science, religion and belief in society. Greater attention is being paid to the varied ways in which perceptions of different aspects of STEMM subjects (science, technology, engineering, medicine, and mathematics) have been, or are, influenced by religious and non-religious…
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Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash We are pleased to announce the first awards made via our Seed Funding and Small Research Grants scheme. We have been able to award funding to fifteen projects in this first round of funding. Projects will focus on conducting socially relevant research across a variety of aspects in the field of religion and science in society, in a broad range of countries.
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PhD Workshop Online 12 – 16 April 2021 The International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS) will be running an international PhD workshop online from 12-16 April 2021. The workshop is open to anyone currently enrolled on a PhD programme and conducting research on any social or cultural aspect of Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths or Medicine (STEMM) in relation to any religious, spiritual or non-religious…
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Renny Thomas is Assistant Professor (Sociology and Social Anthropology), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India. Before joining IISER, he taught at the Department of Sociology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, New Delhi (2015-2021). Renny received his PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and was the 2017-2018 Charles Wallace Fellowship in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. You…
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Dr Kim Rios is Associate Professor of Psychology at Ohio University where she has taught since 2013. whose research explores the relationship between science, religion and identity from a Social Psychological perspective. She is interested in the causes and consequences of stereotyping/prejudice among religious majorities (such as, negative stereotypes about Christians’ scientific abilities) and minorities (for example, negative stereotypes about atheists’ morality and trustworthiness), both within the U.S. and cross-culturally.
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Recently, we caught up with Dr Tom Aechtner, Senior Lecturer in Religion and Science at the University of Queensland, to record an episode for the Science & Belief in Society podcast series. That episode, on Tom’s work around persuasion tactics in science and religion mass media communication, will be launched in Summer 2021. Tom has also been researching vaccination scepticism and anti-vaccination movements and media. Given…
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Dr Shiri Noy is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at Denison University, Ohio. Her research interests are in political culture, globalization, and development. You can read her Researcher Profile here. In this episode, we talk with Shiri about the value of quantitative and qualitative methods in understanding public attitudes to science and religion in the US; how theoretical insights from political and cultural sociology help to…
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Professor Fern Elsdon-Baker is the Director for the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society and the Principal Investigator on the Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum of Global Perspectives project. She is a Professor in Science, Knowledge and Belief in Society and is the Director of the Science, Knowledge and Belief in Society Research Group at the University of Birmingham.
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By James Riley “Buddhist temple detail Singapore #dailyshoot” by Leshaines123 is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit. Pew Research Center recently released a new report exploring the intersections of science and religion, based on new data from interviews with Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists in Malaysia and Singapore. The report’s authors said:…
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By Amanda Beardsley and Jude Likori The most frequently used words in feedback given by our ECR workshop participants In July of this year, the INSBS Network hosted a week-long workshop for Early Career Researchers. The Workshop was split into two groups to accommodate a broad range of time zones. Two members of the groups give us their reflections on the workshop below; Amanda (West Cohort) and Jude (East Cohort).
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Congratulations to our Network member, Bastiaan Rutjens (University of Amsterdam) on his recent success in securing a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to set up a lab focussed on the psychology of science skepticism. We caught up with Bastiaan recently and he explained that “The rejection of science that we see across various segments of society represents an important challenge. While recent research has…
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As you will all be aware, across many countries governments and universities have recently been placing restrictions on people’s travel in response to the COVID 19 epidemic, with many higher education institutions closing completely for an indefinite period. This includes bans on mass gathering over 100 people and incoming international travel in some countries including South Africa. In the UK we have not yet witnessed many restrictions on travel and…
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Welcome to our new and exciting website, please read below about all of the exciting developments we’re launching over the coming months, and have a click around while you’re here.
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29-30 June, 2020, Stellenbosch, South Africa Organised by the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS) in association with the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. We invite expressions of interest to participate in the fully-funded, STEMM and Belief in Diverse Contexts Early Career Researcher (ECR) Workshop, which will take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa…
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1 – 3 July, 2020 Stellenbosch, South Africa Call for Papers Please note: bursaries to support attendance are available, including (but not limited to) specific funds for early career researchers and researchers who are based in Africa. Organised by the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (IRNSSBS) in association with the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST),…
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