The ISSR was founded in Leuven, Belgium in 1948 as the “Conférence Internationale de Sociologie Religieuse” (International Conference for Religious Sociology). After several years of meeting as a confessional organization, with members from mostly European countries, it reconstituted itself as a worldwide scientific organization devoted to understanding the relationship between religion and society.

The Society holds bilingual (French & English) conferences every two years. Though we do not publish our own journal, we fill one issue of the international journal Social Compass annually with papers from our conferences.

Our 500+ members come from all continents of the world.  They include some of the world’s leading authorities on religion as well as some of the field’s newest scholars. Though most members are sociologists by discipline, there is an increasing number of members with backgrounds in disciplines such as anthropology, political science, and women’s studies. Similarly, though most of our members are based in universities, others work for denominational research centers and independent research institutes.

The ISSR publishes a bulletin in French and English. It also sponsors a New Researcher’s Network for postgraduate students and recent PhDs, regardless of age.

Past Conferences

• 34^th ISSR Conference: Religion, Cooperation and Conflict in Diverse Societies, Lausanne (Switzerland), 2017
• 33^rd ISSR Conference: Sensing religion, Louvan-la-Neuve (Belgium), 2015
• 32^nd ISSR Conference: Rethinking community. Religious continuities and mutations in late modernity, Turku/Åbo (Finland), 2013
• 31^st ISSR Conference: Religion and economy in a global world, Aix-en-Provence (France), 2011
• 30^th ISSR Conference: The challenges of religious pluralism, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), 2009
• 29^th ISSR Conference: Secularity and religious vitality, Leipzig (Germany), 2007
• 28^th ISSR Conference: Challenging Boundaries: Religion and Society, Zagreb (Croatia), 2005
• 27^th ISSR Conference: Religion and generations, Turin (Italy), 2003
• 26^rd ISSR Conference: Interpreting Religion Today: Competing Processes and Paradigms, Ixtapan de la Sa (Mexico), 2001

Contacts

• Office phone: + 44 2890 97 3581
• Email: contact@sisr-issr.org
• Website: https://www.sisr-issr.org/