Research-based teaching

In our School it is possible to begin research as a student and researchers and teaching staff are involved in several projects. Our strengths include Semitic studies, ancient civilizations, and the relationship of religion and science, as well as church history and religious education and sociology of religion.

A research group in religious studies from our School has participated in the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory (CECT). Between 2001 and 2004, the 5th Framework Programme of the European Union project, “Churches and European Integration”, was implemented in cooperation with the Universities of Helsinki, Lund, Münster, and Glasgow. Between 2006 and 2009, the 6th Framework Programme of the European Union project, “Religion in Education”, was carried out with the cooperation of scientists from nine European universities.

Postgraduate students have had the opportunity to participate in the Socrates intensive programmes “Gottdenken” and “Translating God(s)”. We are also participating in various international Socrates networks (e.g. TRES and EuReSIS NeT).

Several religion-related target-financed research projects, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science, have been completed in the School. From 2011 to 2016, much of the research at the School was focused on a major research project: “Secularization (de-institutionalization and de-Christianization): Religion in Estonia from the Modern Period to the Present”.

Today, the heritage of the Estonian scholars A. Võõbus and U. Masing is being researched. Twenty-three individual research projects financed by grants from the Estonian Science Foundation have been carried out in the School since 1994. “The History of Estonian Ecumenism”, a research project for the Estonian Council of Churches 2007–2009, resulted in a collective monograph both in Estonian and English. The Estonian state supports the project on the mapping and research of the exile church archives (since 2010) under the Estonian diaspora programme.