Understanding Unbelief: Affiliated Projects

Understanding Unbelief created a studentship at the University of Kent and provided £1M of grant funding to researchers around the world studying atheism, agnosticism and other forms of ‘non-believing’. Funding opportunities were available to both established and early career researchers and continues to support a growing list of publications.  

PhD project

  • Lived Non-Belief: Non-Religion, Religion, and Relationality in Older Adults’ Worldviews and Identities
    Joanna Malone

Grant funded research

  • Life Stories of the Unbeliever: Existential Narratives of Living and Dying, Newman University
    Katie Aston

  • Understanding Unbelief Among Culturally Muslim People in Sweden, Uppsala University
    Ann af Burén

  • Origin and Maintenance of Unbelief in a Believing World, University of Otago
    Jamin Halberstadt, Jesse Bering, Victoria K. Alogna, Jonathan Jong, Evan Balkcom & Samantha Smith

  • Reaching for a New Sense of Connection? Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Sociality of Generation Y Non-believers in Northern and Central Europe, Kingston University London
    David Herbert & Josh Bullock

  • Mapping the Psychology of Unbelief Across Contexts and Cultures, Coventry University
    Jonathan Jong & Robert Ross

  • Magical Thinking in Contexts and Situations of Unbelief, The Open University 
    Theodoros Kyriakides & Richard Irvine

  • Uncovering the Hidden Nature of Unbelief, University of Helsinki
    Marjaana Lindeman, Uffe Schjoedt, Michiel van Elk & Pinja Marin

  • Minority Millennials and the Rise of “Religious Nones”: A Comparative Analysis, Norfolk State University
    Aprilfaye Manalang
    Learn more about this project

  • Meaning Making Narratives Among Non-Religious Individuals Facing the End of Life, Sacred Heart University
    Christel Manning

  • Exploring the Belief Replacement Hypothesis: What Secular Beliefs Do Non-believers Have, and What Psychological Functions Do They Serve? Coventry University
    Valerie van Mulukom

  • Understanding Unbelief in Egypt, Radboud University
    Karin van Nieuwkerk
    Learn more about this project

  • Understanding Unbelief in Japan
    Yutaka Osakabe

  • Kernels of Doubt: A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Ubiquity and Form of Religious (Non)Commitment, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
    Benjamin Grant Purzycki
    Learn more about this project

  • Mindfulness Meditation: A Secular Religion for Unbelievers? Coventry University
    Masoumeh (Sara) Rahmani, Miguel Farias & Valerie van Mulukom

  • Understanding Unbelief in Estonia, University of Tartu
    Atko-Sulhan Remmel

  • Jewish Unbelief in Contemporary Britain, Birkbeck College, University of London
    Ruth Sheldon

  • Understanding Unbelief in Secular Social Action: Doing Whose Work? University of Ottawa
    Timothy Stacey & Lori Beaman

  • The Amoral Atheist? A Cross-cultural Examination of Cognitive, Motivational, and Cultural Contributions to Unbelief and Moral Considerations, University of Illinois at Chicago
    Tomas Ståhl & Linda J. Skitka

  • Nonreligious Childhood: Growing Up Unbelieving in Contemporary Britain, University of York
    Anna Strhan & Rachael Shillitoe
    Learn more about this project

  • Unholy Catholic Ireland – Unbelief, Morality and the Rejection of the Church, Queen’s University, Belfast
    Hugh Turpin