As its primary goal, the RSCS Institute seeks to merge and federate research teams and individuals who study religions and spiritualities in their various dimensions: historical, philological, theological, philosophical, juridical, literary, artistic, sociological, anthropological, psychological and didactic. The Institute joins these various forces so as to create a unique research framework in today’s university world, made possible by UCLouvain’s character as a complete university.
French is the main language used by RSCS teams and publications. Through this language RSCS is engaged in strong scientific cooperation with other teams, working in France, Swiszerland, Canada, Latin America, Africa or Oceania. Religious Studies and Theology have strong specificity in this cultural "latin" area. RSCS is deeply engaged in analysing this specificity.
English, Dutch, Italian and German are also fluently used as second languages for scientific cooperation, with teams highly specialised in Thelogy and Religious Studies in these parts of the world, and also at a European Union level or in contact with homologous departments in the United States.
Over the last years, RSCS has developed new incentives for international cooperation with English speaking teams, and RSCS publications in English in the field of Religious Studies.
RSCS' Three main goals
- Reinforcing specific axes of research that involve the religious object as well as the promotion multi-disciplinary research teams
- Encouraging collaboration in research projects common to various disciplines
- Developing research projects on 3 levels:
- large scale projects on the religious object,
- interdisciplinary studies, involving different research centres and groups,
- specialized studies falling in the domains of the Institute members’ academic research.