Description

Founded in 2009, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducts independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy. Actively engaged with the media, PRRI aims to drive a thoughtful discourse on the public role of religion in the United States, and to productively connect academic researchers, think tanks, media professionals, and other knowledge makers.
The Institute seeks Luce Foundation support for the launch of an initiative designed to advance public knowledge in the service of healing and strengthening American democracy. Supporting collaborative and interdisciplinary public scholarship, the initiative will cast light on the complex and contested place of public religion, as the country reckons with fundamental questions of ethics and pluralism, public trust and democratic accountability.
The initiative will be anchored by a public fellows program, to be integrated into all of PRRI’s work. Building on a program launched with earlier Luce support, PRRI will annually select up to 16 scholars whose research intersects with one or more of its four main foci: religious pluralism, racial justice, immigration, and LGBTQ rights. Serving renewable one-year terms, fellows will participate in regular Zoom calls, share work-in-progress and explore collaborations, receive communcations training, produce public-facing work for varied media outlets, and integrate PRRI public opinion data into their own research. Fellows will gather annually for a workshop in Washington, DC, meeting with media professionals, think tank representatives, and other leaders.
Alongside the fellows program, PRRI will develop two related networks of scholars, public thinkers, and religious and civic leaders. Drawing on learnings from the Institute’s partnership with the Luce Foundation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, PRRI will cultivate and regularly convene two groups: one focused on issues related to religion and racial justice, including participants whose work is rooted in several different U.S. cities; and a second focused on religion and migration, with a focus on the American Southwest. The initiative will be led by PRRI founder Robert P. Jones. Jones writes regularly for The Atlantic, NBC Think, and other outlets, and he is frequently featured in major national media, including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. He holds a Ph.D. from Emory University, and an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $1,000,000 to the Public Religion Research Institute to support “Religion and Renewing Democracy.”