Introduction: research and reaching out

Research
One of the major activities by the Blaise Pascal Institute is doing research on the interaction of religion, ethics and science in contemporary society. The centre serves the faculty, students and staff of the Vrije Universiteit as well as the academic community at large by organizing symposia and lectures, and publishing books and articles. More...

Reaching out
The Blaise Pascal Institute is an interdisciplinary centre and therefore it interacts with academics in all the departments.  Lectures and symposia are announced to a broad public of educated people.

Its quarterly, In de Marge, publishes a number of essays in the areas of religion, ethics and science, sometimes immediately responding to current events and at other times on more general issues.

The annual BPI-lectures and similar initiatives have brought internationally renowed scholars to Amsterdam, including the theologians Gerhard Liedke and Hans Küng, the philosophers Alvin Plantinga, Louis Dupré, Ernan McMullin, and Jan Van der Veken, the physicist-philosopher Paul Davies, and the sociologist Zygmunt Baumann.

For many years the Blaise Pascal Institute has also been involved in developing new models for liturgical celebration. Recently a documentation centre has been added to the Blaise Pascal Institute with the aim of collecting material on liturgical renewal.

In 1985 the Vrije Universiteit was the first university to award an honorary doctorate to René Girard. Since then the Blaise Pascal Intituut hosts the Girard Studiekring, that will organise the Colloquium of Violence and Religion (COV&R) 2007.