Berkley Center

Through research, teaching, and outreach, the Berkley Center seeks to build understanding and promote dialogue and cooperation around issues of religion, peace, and world affairs.

Two premises guide the center’s work: that religion is a critically important but poorly understood force in world affairs, and that the open engagement of religious and cultural traditions with one another can promote peace.

Advancing Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue 

From its founding the Berkley Center has prioritized interreligious and intercultural dialogue in the service of peace. In its first decade the center cooperated with the World Economic Forum on a platform for dialogue with the Islamic world, supported high-level dialogue with China on religious questions, generated three edited volumes on religious pluralism in world affairs, and completed the American Pilgrimage Project, centered on the interface between faith and culture. 

More recently, our efforts to advance interreligious and intercultural dialogue have centered on the Culture of Encounter Project, Georgetown Global Dialogues, and Theologies and Practices of Religious Pluralism Project and a series of dialogues on Christian-Jewish relations. Other projects include the Faith and Culture Series and support for the G20 Interfaith Forum and for Building Bridges, a leading long-running dialogue between Christian and Muslim scholars.

Linking the Worlds of Religion and Global Development

An enduring priority of the Berkley Center has been connections between the worlds of religion and development. The center has a long-term partnership with the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD) and has convened a global series of multistakeholder global meetings across regions and topics in issues ranging from health and gender to education and the environment. The center has also hosted the Opus Prize, produced a series of country studies on faith and development, and generated a rich collection of interviews with development practitioners. 

In more recent years, the center and WFDD have shifted to more in-depth country engagement on faith and development dynamics, notably in Bangladesh, Senegal, Indonesia, and Nigeria. An influential project on religion and COVID-19 has explored the role of faith-inspired actors in grappling with the pandemic and its legacies. Another current focus of the center’s scholarly and outreach work is the crisis of displaced persons worldwide and its humanitarian impact.

Supporting a Positive Role for Faith in Diplomacy and Politics

From the outset, the Berkley Center has addressed issues at the intersection of faith, politics, diplomacy, and peace. During its first decade, the center was home to the Religious Freedom Project, the first university-based research and impact program of its kind. The center also managed a number of government outreach programs; produced a book on political theology for a global age; advanced research at the intersection of religion, law, and world affairs, and collaborated with the World Economic Forum on a report on “Faith and the Global Agenda.”

Over the past several years the center has expanded its engagement with issues at the intersection of religion, diplomacy, and peace. Both the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion and Diplomacy and the Geopolitics of Soft Power Project bring scholars and practitioners together to address the changing role of religion in world affairs. The program on the Politicization of Religion in Global Perspective explores the intersection of faith and politics. The center is also home to a multiyear project on the changing relationship between religion and human rights.

Understanding the Catholic Church’s Evolving Role in World Affairs

From its inception the Berkley Center has devoted considerable attention to the Church’s changing role in world affairs, in keeping with Georgetown’s identity as a Catholic and Jesuit institution. A multiyear project on the Jesuits and globalization culminated in several convenings and a major edited book. The center’s program on the Church and Nuclear Issues addressed a critical and understudied dimension of religion and international affairs. 

In recent years the center has made Pope Francis’ call to a culture of encounter a focus of research and outreach activities, in close coordination with Vatican partners and Georgetown’s newly established Rome Office. The center also supports a scholarly project on Catholicism in Asia and hosts the Women Faith Leaders Fellowship, which supports education and training for Catholic sisters and future leaders across the African continent. 

Advancing Religious Understanding and a Culture of Dialogue in Education

Teaching has been central to the mission of the Berkley Center since its founding. The interdisciplinary minor in Religion, Ethics, and World Affairs (REWA) has a long track record of success, and the center is a founding partner on the Doyle Engaging Difference Program, which engages themes of diversity and constructive dialogue in the classroom. The long-running Education and Social Justice Project supports global student experiences.

Since the start of the decade the center has continued to develop curricular resources around religion and world affairs and has coordinated the Global Citizenship Curriculum Project of the International Association of Jesuit Universities, which links more than 50 institutions. The Doyle Program and REWA remain at the heart of the center’s educational work, which now also includes student participation in the Georgetown Global Dialogues.