RelSciCom 2026

Thank you very much for your inter­est in the work­shop series. All places are cur­rent­ly tak­en, so reg­is­tra­tion is no longer pos­si­ble.

Inter­na­tion­al Online Work­shops for PhD and Post­grad­u­ate Stu­dents – organ­ised by REMID e.V. and INFORM

What is the point of your PhD? What is the point of being an expert? How can you demon­strate your knowl­edge to poten­tial employ­ers both inside and out­side acad­e­mia? This series of work­shops will help you to artic­u­late the impor­tance of well-researched social sci­en­tif­ic infor­ma­tion and direct­ly con­tribute to knowl­edge cre­ation, includ­ing through social media and data­bas­es. 

Acad­e­mia car­ries civic respon­si­bil­i­ty to con­tribute crit­i­cal per­spec­tives on reli­gion and world­views to the pub­lic sphere. It is not easy to com­mu­ni­cate evi­dence-based research find­ings to the pub­lic, but it is more impor­tant than ever in con­tem­po­rary times, where knowl­edge is fierce­ly con­test­ed and false infor­ma­tion and ‘fake news’ leads to a cri­sis of exper­tise. These work­shops will give you the con­fi­dence and the skills to enter these pub­lic debates. 

When and what?

RelSci­Com 2026 is a coop­er­a­tion between INFORM and REMID e.V. It is a series of four work­shop days dur­ing which par­tic­i­pants will learn how, why, and through which media they can com­mu­ni­cate their research to the gen­er­al pub­lic. Each work­shop will include a pan­el dis­cus­sion with expe­ri­enced researchers, a ses­sion to learn tech­niques and meth­ods of trans­form­ing aca­d­e­m­ic research to pub­lic knowl­edge, and a ses­sion to put the new­ly acquired meth­ods to prac­tice. 

Par­tic­i­pants can sign up for one work­shop, or for all four, in which case they will receive a cer­tifi­cate of par­tic­i­pa­tion. Par­tic­i­pants must be PhD stu­dents reg­is­tered at either a British or Ger­man Uni­ver­si­ty. Work­shop dates are 16^th Jan­u­ary; 13^th Feb­ru­ary; 13^th March; 17^th April 2026. 

Workshop contents

Why Go Public?

The first in the series of work­shops will serve as an intro­duc­tion to the series, to the organ­is­ing par­ties, and to the impor­tance of going pub­lic with research. 

Both Inform and REMID e.v. have a knowl­edge exchange and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion mis­sion at their core. Inform was found­ed on the basis of mak­ing aca­d­e­m­ic research about reli­gious move­ments pub­licly acces­si­ble in order to reduce harm caused by mis­in­for­ma­tion. This remit remains as impor­tant as ever in con­tem­po­rary soci­ety in which mis­in­for­ma­tion abounds and con­tributes to polar­i­sa­tion. REMID is the cen­tral point of con­tact in Ger­many for trans­par­ent and well-found­ed sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion on reli­gion-relat­ed top­ics from a val­ue-neu­tral per­spec­tive. 

How­ev­er, ful­fill­ing this remit takes the courage of schol­ars to step beyond the con­fines of the ‘ivory tow­er’ and engage in pub­lic dis­cus­sions and the dis­sem­i­na­tion of their research beyond acad­e­mia. Whilst this is an impor­tant part of a scholar’s ‘impact’, the prac­ti­cal­i­ties of how to do it might not always be well cov­ered in stu­dents’ degree pro­grammes.

This work­shop will pro­vide dis­cus­sions and train­ing from schol­ars with lived expe­ri­ence of shar­ing their research with the pub­lic. The Work­shop explores, based on our research project “female sci­en­tists into the media” why sci­en­tists should engage pub­licly with the media and how media vis­i­bil­i­ty is struc­tural­ly pro­duced and lim­it­ed. The ses­sion address­es spe­cif­ic fea­tures of the Ger­man media land­scape and its cul­tur­al log­ics, offer­ing guid­ance for researchers on nav­i­gat­ing and engag­ing with media. It includes prac­ti­cal train­ing in short media for­mats, such as the #ich­bin­Wis­senschaft­lerin cam­paign.

Self-Marketing and Social Media

In the sec­ond work­shop, you will learn how to self-mar­ket your research through social media. Experts will dis­cuss var­i­ous media plat­forms includ­ing web­sites, YouTube and Insta­gram. In the prac­ti­cal ses­sion, our expe­ri­enced expert will offer a prac­ti­cal work­shop that enables you to under­stand the pos­si­bil­i­ties of max­imis­ing YouTube and Insta­gram for both research and knowl­edge exchange, includ­ing such ques­tions as:

• How can I get start­ed? What should I con­sid­er before­hand?
• How do the plat­forms dif­fer and what pos­si­bil­i­ties do they offer?
• To what extent do I need to adapt to the rules of the plat­forms in order to com­mu­ni­cate sci­ence suc­cess­ful­ly?
• How do I find the right for­mat for me?
• How do I reach the intend­ed tar­get audi­ence? How do I grow that audi­ence?

Publishing in Databases & Public Source Data

Pub­lish­ing in select data­bas­es and project web­sites is an impor­tant way ear­ly career schol­ars can net­work with more senior schol­ars, estab­lish a pub­li­ca­tion record and con­tribute to more accu­rate pub­lic under­stand­ing. 

This work­shop will dis­cuss how to get direct­ly involved in knowl­edge cre­ation in the aca­d­e­m­ic study of reli­gions with atten­tion to strate­gic uses of time. Top­ics cov­ered will include pos­si­bil­i­ties for direct remu­ner­a­tion and ways of lever­ag­ing the ideas and net­works engaged in these activ­i­ties for fram­ing future grant appli­ca­tions and estab­lish­ing ongo­ing part­ner­ships for pub­lic engage­ment and impact. 

Specif­i­cal­ly we will look at the Data­base of Reli­gious His­to­ry and the New Reli­gios­i­ty Project, but we will also explore oth­er plat­forms such as the World Reli­gions and Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty Project.  This work­shop will be led by the team behind the New Reli­gios­i­ty Project.

Jobs, Social Transformations and Impact

This work­shop address­es the urgent need for effec­tive sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the study of reli­gions. In times of ris­ing con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, new right nar­ra­tives, and algo­rithm-dri­ven echo cham­bers, well-informed out­reach is essen­tial. This fos­ters demo­c­ra­t­ic resilience, strength­ens pub­lic trust in aca­d­e­m­ic exper­tise, and high­lights the soci­etal rel­e­vance of the study of reli­gions. It also sets stu­dents up for jobs in acad­e­mia or in fields adja­cent to acad­e­mia, includ­ing civ­il ser­vice, pub­lic rela­tions, media, muse­ums and gal­leries, and research in oth­er con­texts.

By strength­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion com­pe­ten­cies, par­tic­i­pants gain a com­pet­i­tive edge on the job mar­ket and for their post­doc projects and learn to engage diverse publics with nuanced, research-based insights. This last work­shop day will dis­cuss how Reli­gious Stud­ies stu­dents can have a pub­lic impact with their research, con­tribut­ing to social trans­for­ma­tion. The prac­ti­cal ses­sion will be split into the Ger­man and UK con­texts, where stu­dents will hear from experts in both acad­e­mia and beyond on careers after the study of reli­gion.

Dani­jel Ben­jamin Cubel­ic: From Reli­gious Stud­ies to Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion and Diver­si­ty Work: Skills, Strate­gies and Munic­i­pal Prac­tice This work­shop explores pro­fes­sion­al path­ways for schol­ars of Reli­gious Stud­ies beyond acad­e­mia, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and munic­i­pal equal­i­ty work. It address­es:

• how skills devel­oped in Reli­gious Stud­ies such as con­tex­tu­al analy­sis, crit­i­cal engage­ment with reli­gion in pub­lic space, and the inter­pre­ta­tion of social con­flict in super­di­verse soci­eties, can be applied in anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion and diver­si­ty work,
• the role of reli­gious lit­er­a­cy in address­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion at the local lev­el, the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of munic­i­pal strate­gies, rec­om­men­da­tions, and action plans aimed at safe­guard­ing equal treat­ment and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion in every­day admin­is­tra­tive prac­tice,
• insti­tu­tion­al set­tings and rou­tine chal­lenges with­in local admin­is­tra­tions, includ­ing equal­i­ty offices and anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion units,
• insights from munic­i­pal prac­tice and Euro­pean exchange with­in the Euro­pean Coali­tion of Cities against Racism (ECCAR), a net­work of more than 180 cities work­ing on struc­tur­al approach­es to com­bat­ing racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Euro­pean Coali­tion of Cities against Racism (ECCAR): https://www.eccar.info/en

Schedule

On our Speakers

Judith Ackermann

Judith Ack­er­mann holds a PhD in Media Stud­ies and is a Research Pro­fes­sor of Dig­i­tal Media and Per­for­mance in Social Work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Pots­dam. Her work focus­es on the poten­tial of dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion for soci­ety and cul­ture. She is (co-)principal inves­ti­ga­tor of the research projects Female Sci­en­tists into Media (BMFTR 2022–2025), MyApp­My­Da­ta (BMBFSFJ 2025–2028), and FEEL (EFRE 2025–2028).
Social Media: Insta­gram @Jiutha Tik­Tok: @dieprofessorin 

Home­page: http://www.judith-ackermann.de/

Anna-Sophie Barbutev

Anna-Sophie Bar­butev is a com­mu­ni­ca­tion sci­en­tist, jour­nal­ist and sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tor. She worked as an aca­d­e­m­ic research asso­ciate in the BMFTR-fund­ed project Female Sci­en­tists into Media. Her research inter­ests lie in jour­nal­ism stud­ies, sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and gen­der stud­ies.

Social Media: Ins­ta @asbarbutev 

Anne-Kathrin Gerlieb

Anne-Kathrin Ger­lieb is a soci­ol­o­gist and art stud­ies schol­ar, and is pur­su­ing her PhD in soci­ol­o­gy as a schol­ar­ship hold­er of the Friedrich Nau­mann Foun­da­tion at the Düs­sel­dorf Art Acad­e­my. She was a research asso­ciate on the BMFTR-fund­ed project Female Sci­en­tists into Media. Her research focus­es on dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, soci­ol­o­gy of art and cul­ture, gen­der stud­ies, and soci­o­log­i­cal the­o­ry.

Social Media: Instagram/TikTok: @enna.gia 

Home­page: https://annegerlieb.de/

Theo Wildcroft

Theo Wild­croft, PhD is a yoga teacher-train­er, writer and schol­ar who is inter­est­ed in the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of yoga post-lin­eage, somat­ic lit­er­a­cy, mean­ing-mak­ing and the counter-cul­ture. She is an Asso­ciate Lec­tur­er at the Open Uni­ver­si­ty, UK, Vis­it­ing Lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chester, Fel­low of the HEA, for­mer Coor­di­na­tor of the SOAS Cen­tre of Yoga Stud­ies, edi­tor of the BASR Bul­letin, an hon­orary mem­ber of the British Wheel of Yoga, mem­ber of the IAYT, a con­tin­u­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment train­er and con­sul­tant for Yoga Alliance (E‑RYT® 500, YACEP®), and Coun­cil Mem­ber for the AYC. 

She is the author of Post-lin­eage yoga: from guru to #metoo, co-writer of Lead­ing Safe and Sim­ple Yoga Nidras (com­ing soon), edi­tor of Reli­gion and the Sense of Self (also com­ing soon), and co-edi­tor of The Yoga Teach­ers’ Sur­vival Guide and Yoga Stud­ies in Five Min­utes.

Web­site: https://theowildcroft.com/

Angela Puca

Dr Angela Puca is a uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er at Leeds Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in phi­los­o­phy. In 2021, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds award­ed her a PhD in Reli­gious Stud­ies, pub­lished by Brill with the title “Ital­ian Witch­craft and Shaman­ism”.
Her research focus­es on mag­ic, witch­craft, Pagan­ism, eso­teri­cism, shaman­ism, and relat­ed cur­rents.
Author of sev­er­al peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tions and co-edi­tor ‘Pagan Reli­gions in five Min­utes’ for Equinox, she hopes to bridge the gap between acad­e­mia and the com­mu­ni­ties of mag­ic prac­ti­tion­ers by deliv­er­ing relat­ed schol­ar­ly con­tent on her YouTube Chan­nel and social media ‘Angela’s Sym­po­sium.’
All of Dr Puca’s links: https://linktr.ee/angela_symposium

Ruth Peacock

Ruth Pea­cock is the edi­to­r­i­al con­sul­tant and project lead at the Reli­gion Media Cen­tre project and over­sees its work. After study­ing the­ol­o­gy and teach­ing RE, she trained as a jour­nal­ist on a local paper, free­lanced in print and radio and then joined the BBC, work­ing in many news depart­ments, includ­ing the main news­gath­er­ing desk. She also worked on the BBC’s move into the new W1 build­ing and stud­ied organ­i­sa­tion­al change.

Prof. Dr. Isabel Laack

Prof. Dr. Isabel Laack has been pro­fes­sor for the Study of Religion/s and Non-Euro­pean His­to­ry of Reli­gions at Tübin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty (Ger­many) since 2021. Her exper­tise lies in the field of con­tem­po­rary reli­gios­i­ty in Europe and pre-His­pan­ic Mesoamer­i­can tra­di­tions with a the­o­ret­i­cal focus on the aes­thet­ics of reli­gion (the body and the sens­es, music and sound, visu­al­i­ty and mate­r­i­al text prac­tices) as well as process­es of cul­tur­al con­tact and per­son­al and col­lec­tive iden­ti­ty for­ma­tions. She is also think­ing a lot about the iden­ti­ty and future of the Study of Religion/s as a cul­tur­al stud­ies’ dis­ci­pline in a world fac­ing severe chal­lenges such as cli­mate change, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, polit­i­cal and social polar­iza­tion and extrem­ism.

With the re-estab­lish­ment of the Insti­tute for the Study of Reli­gions and the launch of a new BA cur­ricu­lum at Tübin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty, Isabel Laack is focused on revi­tal­iz­ing the discipline’s local and nation­al pres­ence. Her work on the exec­u­tive board of the Ger­man Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Religion/s fur­ther empha­sizes the neces­si­ty of reflect­ing on the field’s social rel­e­vance. She views sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tion as a key tool for trans­lat­ing aca­d­e­m­ic research into mean­ing­ful soci­etal con­tri­bu­tions.

Web­site: https://uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/philosophische-fakultaet/fachbereiche/altertums-und-kunstwissenschaften/institut-fuer-religionswissenschaft/institut/personen/prof-dr-isabel-laack/

Tim Hutchings

Dr Hutch­ings is a soci­ol­o­gist of dig­i­tal reli­gion and Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion. His PhD (Durham Uni­ver­si­ty, 2010) was an ethno­graph­ic study of five online Chris­t­ian church­es. His work has includ­ed stud­ies of dig­i­tal evan­ge­lism; online com­mu­ni­ty; Bible apps; Chris­t­ian videogames; and death and dying on social media. He also stud­ies the teach­ing of Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, and works with the nation­al organ­i­sa­tion TRS-UK to build bet­ter links between schools and uni­ver­si­ties. His teach­ing focus­es on reli­gious ethics, media ethics, the study of reli­gion, and research meth­ods. He is the author of Cre­at­ing Church Online (Rout­ledge 2017), co-edi­tor of Mate­ri­al­i­ty and the Study of Reli­gion (Rout­ledge 2016) and Chris­tian­i­ty and Dig­i­tal Human­i­ties: An Intro­duc­tion (De Gruter 2021) and found­ing edi­tor of the jour­nal Reli­gion, Media and Dig­i­tal Cul­ture (Brill). 

Web­site: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/departments/theology-and-religious-studies/people/tim.hutchings

Paul-Francois Tremlett

Dr Trem­lett joined the Reli­gious Stud­ies depart­ment at the Open Uni­ver­si­ty in 2010. He is inter­est­ed in the­o­ry and method in Reli­gious Stud­ies, and, as well as ethno­graph­ic research in the Philip­pines, he has con­duct­ed research in Tai­wan around death and sec­u­lar­ism and in Hong Kong and Lon­don, on the Occu­py move­ment. He con­duct­ed research online dur­ing the Covid pan­dem­ic on the for­ma­tion of transna­tion­al “moral publics” in rela­tion to cam­paigns by Fil­ipino human rights organ­i­sa­tions in the dias­po­ra. He is cur­rent­ly lead­ing two research projects both of which fore­ground issues of lit­er­a­cy in reli­gion. One is focused on devel­op­ing resources for FE col­leges to teach reli­gious lit­er­a­cy and the oth­er attends to issues of dis­in­for­ma­tion and democ­ra­cy.

Web­site: https://profiles.open.ac.uk/paul-francois-tremlett

Danijel Benjamin Cubelic

Dani­jel Ben­jamin Cubel­ic is Direc­tor of the Office for Equal Oppor­tu­ni­ties of the City of Hei­del­berg and Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coali­tion of Cities against Racism, a net­work of over 180 cities across Europe. His work focus­es on devel­op­ing prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions, strate­gies, and pol­i­cy frame­works to safe­guard equal treat­ment and com­bat dis­crim­i­na­tion at the munic­i­pal lev­el. He has par­tic­u­lar exper­tise in address­ing anti­semitism, anti-Mus­lim racism, and diver­si­ty in reli­gious­ly and migra­tion-diverse soci­eties. He stud­ied Reli­gious Stud­ies and Islam­ic Stud­ies in Hei­del­berg, Bochum, Alep­po, and Dam­as­cus. Along­side his pol­i­cy work, he teach­es Diver­si­ty and Gen­der Stud­ies and serves as a Deputy Advi­so­ry Board Mem­ber of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Agency, bridg­ing local gov­er­nance, Euro­pean city net­works, and applied anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion prac­tice.

Moti­va­tion / Approach
Reli­gious Stud­ies pro­vides ana­lyt­i­cal tools that are high­ly rel­e­vant for under­stand­ing social diver­si­ty, pow­er rela­tions, and con­flict dynam­ics in post-migrant and super­di­verse soci­eties. In pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion, these com­pe­ten­cies are need­ed not in the abstract, but in sit­u­a­tions where insti­tu­tions have to respond to dis­crim­i­na­tion with­in legal frame­works, polit­i­cal debates, and organ­i­sa­tion­al con­straints. The work­shop offers a prac­tice-ori­ent­ed and crit­i­cal per­spec­tive on how aca­d­e­m­ic skills can be trans­lat­ed into con­crete pro­fes­sion­al roles, focus­ing on insti­tu­tion­al respon­si­bil­i­ties, unre­solved chal­lenges, and learn­ing process­es in every­day munic­i­pal anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion work rather than on ide­alised career nar­ra­tives.

Who are REMID and INFORM?

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