This call is open across the full programme specification but the AHRC and ESRC are particularly keen to encourage proposals in the following specific areas:

Meaning, Defining and Being: In addition to all of the key questions outlined in the Programme Specification, proposals are welcomed which offer theoretical reflection on aspects of religion and society, and/or which develop and interrogate key concepts in the study of religion and society. Contributions from disciplines such as theology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as the social sciences, are invited.

Religion, Media and the Arts: All of the key questions within this theme, including issues about religion, the arts, performance, space and material and visual culture and the representation of religion in news media. Proposals are particularly encouraged from disciplines such as design, architecture, popular culture and the performing arts, particularly if they engage with the cultural sector e.g museums, arts practitioners etc.

Texts, Spaces, Rituals and Objects: In addition to all of the key questions within this theme outlined in the Programme specification, proposals are welcomed which address the changing significance of sacred texts and symbols in religious communities and wider society.

Law, Politics and the State: All of the key questions within this theme, including the significance of religion in relation to specific political or social movements, or for different kinds of political mobilization.

Attention to the Religion and Society Programme's aims, objectives and themes, and overall quality, will be deciding factors in the assessment of proposals. The final call is highlighting the areas listed above in the light of commissioning to date, in order to ensure that all themes in the Religion and Society Programme are well represented once the commissioning process is complete. Proposals dealing with the other Programme themes are not excluded, even though commissioning has already taken place in these areas.