About CEIR

CEIR The Center for the Empirical Researches of Religion was registered on November 7, 2001 as a non-profit, non-partisan association of citizens founded in order to foster the scientific research of religion. CEIR works to gather academic researchers from across disciplines and promote and popularize their empirical findings. Part of this work involves broadening and popularizing knowledge about different religions in order to develop religious tolerance and social pluralism.

CEIR has launched, organized, and successfully accomplished many different projects in last ten years. These include: publication of the academic journal Religion and Tolerance (whose 17th issue was just published); organizing conferences considering religion; and public debates where religious tolerance and dialogue were promoted. CEIR has also conducted different empirical research studies, these include: research of religious and civic education; social distance and religious tolerance; religiosity of young people; believers’ self-image and psychical health; attitudes toward European Union; and the correlation between levels of trust in the media and the performance of governments. The rich findings of these studies are available on CEIR’s website for free download, e.g. Images of the Religious Others, Religion and Pluralism in Education: A Comparative Approach in Western Balkan, Religious Imagination and Modern Medias, etc.

CEIR is also currently in the midst of several ongoing projects and empirical research studies. Recently CEIR in BIH launched the academic journal Discourses: Society, Religion, Culture (supported by Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina and Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo) and within the project, two issues of the journal have been published and the round-table Identity, Multiculturalism and Fear of Other was organized in Sarajevo- www.diskursi.com.

With the University of Edinburgh, CEIR has organized research about religion and reconciliation, where the different perceptions about the process of reconciliation were analyzed. CEIR is also at the moment finishing the project Activism in Movement/Gender Perspective, where the status of women’s movement in BIH is being researched. In its own activities CEIR has strived not only to gain relevant and objective data but to raise consciousness. Post-war society is still contaminated by fear and prejudice. CEIR activities are both scientific and activist, aiming to trespass boundaries of so called “pure” scientific knowledge.

Members of CEIR are academics (professors and teaching assistants) from different universities. In the past ten year of its existence, CEIR has established a regional network of engaged researchers. Students have participated in CEIR projects, both as volunteers and staff. CEIR also possess all necessary equipment important for the project’s implementation: computer, printer, laptop, camera and voice-recorder.