REligious Studies Infrastructure: tooLs, Experts, conNections and CEnters (RESILIENCE)

RESILIENCE addresses the need of a larger and infrastructured involvement of excellent scholars, producing fertile competencies, new knowledge, fresh approach and visible impact in terms of innovation within the scientific domain of religious studies. Such an involvement has been marked by several steps, e.g. a) ReIReS, an emerging community funded by the programme INFRAIA-02-2017 - Integrating Activities for Starting Communities; b) the H2020 call Religious diversity in Europe - past, present and future; c) the vast platform of the European Academy of Religion; and d) a first proposal submitted to the ESFRI Forum for a research infrastructure in religious studies, RESILIENCE/0. All these activities created a critical and gravitational mass capable to give effectiveness to the scientific community of religious studies: such an effort was acknowledged in the Esfri Roadmap 2018 with the definition of religious studies as a high potential strategic area. However, RESILIENCE/0 was accompanied by some remarks concerning its actual weaknesses and potential ambiguities concerning the way the consortium presented itself and some of its partners. The present renewed, improved, enhanced RESILIENCE proposal wants to respond to those remarks and better demonstrate the excellence of a partnership which can prove to be effective; it describes how to achieve an implementation which is feasible and stable; it aims to express the capacity of the infrastructure to attract resources and competences. It will enrich the open science cloud with a series of challenges and opportunities which will preserve and improve the European leadership in the area of religious studies. RESILIENCE creates, selects and tests digital and physical infrastructures capable of generating, preserving and transmitting knowledge between academics, members of religious communities, and the many groups on whom religious studies have a consequential impact.