Religion, Science, and Society - Intelligence, Meaning Making, and Imagined Futures

Religion, Science, and Society - Intelligence, Meaning Making, and Imagined Futures is sponsored by John Templeton Foundation. This funding area supports research on culture, religious traditions, and spirituality to advance understanding of how religious and spiritual beliefs and practices affect human flourishing.

Religion, Science, and Society - John Templeton Foundation Hello, you are using a very old browser that's not supported. Please, consider updating your browser to a newer version. Templeton.

org is in English. Only a few pages are translated into other languages. Usted está viendo Templeton.

org en español. Tenga en cuenta que solamente hemos traducido algunas páginas a su idioma. El resto permanecen en inglés.

Você está vendo Templeton. org em Português. Apenas algumas páginas do site são traduzidas para o seu idioma.

As páginas restantes são apenas em Inglês. أنت تشاهد Templeton. org باللغة العربية.

تتم ترجمة بعض صفحات الموقع فقط إلى لغتك. الصفحات المتبقية هي باللغة الإنجليزية فقط. Religion, Science, & Society Religion, Science, & Society seeks proposals that address fundamental questions about human existence, how people can flourish and find meaning, and how societies envision the future.

For the 2026 funding cycle, we invite three-year projects in one of the following categories: Intelligence, Meaning Making, and Imagined Futures. Guidance for 2026 Online Funding Inquiries The Religion, Science, & Society funding area will not consider inquiries unrelated to the research areas listed below. Recognizing these topics overlap, please apply to the topical area that best fits your proposal.

Proposals may include components aimed at public engagement, but the primary activities of the project must be research. We prioritize projects composed of interdisciplinary teams. The deadline for submitting Online Funding Inquiries is July 15, 2026.

Priorities for the 2026 Funding Cycle In alignment with the 2026 Foundation-wide Intelligence Venture , the Religion, Science, & Society funding area welcomes proposals on intelligence that apply theological, philosophical, and social scientific approaches to the guiding themes outlined in the venture description.

We are especially interested in proposals that deepen the understanding of how theological and philosophical traditions have conceived of intelligence historically, and how they are making sense of it today. What concepts and approaches in these traditions can be brought into novel engagement with emerging research on artificial, diverse, and collective forms of intelligence?

What frameworks, social structures, or practices allow intelligence—and related concepts like consciousness, personhood, and wisdom—to be cultivated, shared, or transcended? Proposals should specify and interrogate the conception of intelligence they engage, whether human, divine, or arising from other domains of thought and tradition.

While we are open to projects of various structures and designs, we particularly encourage projects that: Offer transferable insights across historical settings, disciplines, and confessional communities. Compare multiple theological and philosophical approaches or focus deeply on one.

Engage partners and communities in tech, business, and arts—introducing existential and philosophical questions into spaces where they are not typically explored. Develop innovative methodologies that shed new light on classical debates or reveal fresh dimensions of canonical texts and traditions. We welcome projects that range from small, focused studies (less than $260K) to larger collaborative initiatives (up to $2.

5M) utilizing subgrants or requests for proposals. To apply for this topical area, please select “Religion, Science, and Society – Special Topic” in the OFI portal. In this topical area, we seek to advance our understanding of how individuals and communities discover and cultivate meaning in their lives.

We are especially interested in projects that investigate concrete manifestations of meaning making in a world marked by rapid social change, with attention to the practices, experiences, and transitions that enable people to develop, sustain, or renew a life of meaning.

Projects should focus on a specific dimension of human life—including but not limited to parenting, vocation, or play—or examine specific tensions inherent to meaning making in contemporary society, such as agency and constraint, mystery and meaninglessness, or suffering and joy.

Competitive proposals will demonstrate the potential to intervene constructively in the tensions characterizing modern life or clarify the conditions in specific spheres of life that support meaning making and beneficial outcomes.

Ultimately, we seek research projects that will help individuals and communities cultivate better ways of being—how interpretive frameworks, existential commitments, and communities form people into more resilient, fulfilled, and spiritually or socially attuned human beings.

While we are open to projects of various structures and designs, for this topical area we particularly encourage projects that: Integrate the sciences with philosophy, theology, or religious studies through robust interdisciplinary collaboration, as reflected in the project’s personnel, activities, outputs, and framing. Produce findings relevant to pluralistic societies and individuals who may or may not claim religious affiliations.

Apply a novel approach to a well-defined setting or tension to ensure conceptual and contextual clarity. In this topical area, we will consider only the following: (1) projects between $700K and $1.

5M (projects over $1M should use a Requests For Proposals (RFP) structure to support competitively selected subgrants around a shared theme); and (2) focused studies requesting less than $260K investigating a specific dimension of meaning-making. To apply to this topical area, please select “Religion, Science, and Society – Meaning Making” in the OFI portal.

In this topical area, we seek to strengthen the capacity of communities and societies to envision and navigate the future. We are especially interested in how religious, philosophical, and narrative traditions—from theology to science fiction—inform a shared sense of imagination and possibility.

We welcome projects that use empirical and interpretive methods to examine the evolutionary, cognitive, and cultural processes shaping the human capacity to think about and prepare for the future . Research in this area should illuminate how communities structure time through institutions, cultural practices, and creative resources to yield distinct forms of knowledge and foresight.

Competitive proposals should employ methods capable of generating predictive insights, imaginative scenarios, and future-oriented knowledge. Approaches may range from computational and predictive models to theoretical and interpretive inquiries. The goal is to shed light on how communities, institutions, or societies adapt, evolve, and transform by orienting present action toward imagined possibilities.

While we are open to projects of various designs, for this topical area we particularly encourage projects that: Draw on expertise from the humanities and media studies alongside the social sciences, theology, or philosophy, as reflected in the project team and partners.

Apply statistical approaches, demographic projections, agent-based simulations, and mathematical models to enhance our understanding of future mental states, religious and spiritual practices, social behaviors, and cultural innovation. Integrate generative juxtapositions—such as empirical methods and narrative analysis, wisdom traditions and contemporary media, or philosophical inquiry and popular culture.

Demonstrate clear potential to inform how institutions, communities, or societies prepare for and respond to change. In this topical area, we will prioritize exploratory projects with a request amount of up to $260K and clear, achievable outputs. To apply to this topical area, please select “Religion, Science, and Society – Imagined Futures” in the OFI portal.

If you are interested in applying for a grant, please register and submit a Funding Inquiry at the Templeton Portal. Associated Staff: Sarah Lane Ritchie; Megan Graziano; Zachary Ugolnik; Erik Gjesfjeld Is there anything unique about human intelligence? What if the story of intelligence does not culminate with us?

Is the world of intelligences vaster, more varied, and more wonderful than we ever imagined? Might intelligence be written into the fabric of reality itself? Starting in 2026, the John Templeton Foundation will award over $60 million in grants focused on such questions across our six funding areas.

Global Flourishing Study: Piloting and Waves 1-5 Religion, Science, and Society The cultivation of spiritual experience among the spiritual but not religious Religion, Science, and Society Faith in Health Professions: Integrating Interfaith Competencies Across the Health Fields Programs Illuminating Theological Inquiry and Christian Ethics Through Training in Psychological Science Enter your Mastodon instance URL (optional)