Who studies religion? This question is surprisingly hard to answer. A brief glance at the literature reveals medical researchers, sociologists, neuroscientists, historians, and many others involved in investigating different aspects of “religion” or “spirituality.” But what do these different approaches have in common (if anything)? To reveal the underlying structure of research in specific fields, an empirical approach that goes beyond overt disciplinary boundaries can provide clarity to these complex pictures.

The Social Consequences of Religion (SCORE) project was conducted in partnership with the Center for Mind and Culture and funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. The CMAC team compiled a clean database including information about co-authorship, publication venues, institutional homes and funding sources. From there, our developers transformed this massive dataset into a detailed mapping of the research communities who study human religion and biological cooperation. This granular mapping of academic fields reveals deeper trends in scholarship, such as their historical evolution, the topics of greatest interest at present, and even where the field is headed.