Projects

Whilst the Centre began as a space for archival research and, increasingly, postgraduate studies, it has also been a forum for promoting academic research in various aspects of World Christianity. The Centre has increasingly been a space for collaborative research projects, which push the envelope on various aspects of World Christianity.

Over the years, some of the Centre projects have included:

  • The ‘African Christianity Project’ (from 1992 to 1998), generously funded by two grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts, involved the Centre in collaboration with eight institutions on the African continent in the promotion of research, publication, and the compilation and exchange of bibliographical information on African Christianity.1
  • ‘The Edinburgh 2010 Project’ was an international ecumenical initiative to reflect on a century of missions since the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910, celebrate past achievements and plan for a new mission paradigm.
  • The Centre led New College’s participation in COP26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties in October to November 2021. This has included contributions by faith communities and organisations to produce gigantic banners for New College’s iconic twin towers, to support climate change awareness.
  • The ‘Global Christians in Edinburgh’ project has shifted the work of the Centre to focus on the global diversity of Christianity here, in Scotland. It has included baseline work conducted from December 2022 to June 2023, and hopes to secure more funding for future work in this area.
  • The Centre supports work on ‘Faith and Health in Africa’. This includes collaborating with partners in D.R. Congo, to improve the teaching of health in faith schools, and working with Universities in Malawi and Uganda to bring academics, medical professionals and practitioners from all religious traditions to discuss the intersection of faith and healing practices.
  1. See James L. Cox, ‘Setting the Context: The African Christianity Project and the Emergence of a Self-Reflexive Institutional Identity’, in James L. Cox and Gerrie ter Haar (eds.), Uniquely African? African Christian Identity from Cultural and Historical Perspectives (Trenton, NJ and Asmara: African World Press, 2003), 1–7. ↩