Project

Discipline

Religion; Religious affilitation; Europe; Cultural and religious identities; Population statistics; Pluralism; Denominations; Social science metadatabases; Islam; Reliability and validity of statistics on religion; Census; Religions

Lead
Religion ist ein Streitthema quer durch Europas Gesellschaften. Aktuelle und verlässliche Daten zur Religionszugehörigkeit in Europa sind aber bislang für viele Länder nicht verfügbar. Das für drei Jahre vom SNF geförderte Forschungsprojekt „Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE)“ soll dies ändern.
Lay summary
Mit Hilfe einer im Rahmen des Projekts zu programmierenden interaktiven, internetbasierten Datenbank wird es erstmals möglich, das vorhandene Zahlenmaterial Land für Land zu erfassen, die Zahlen auf ihre Struktur, Herkunft und Qualität zu analysieren und auf dieser Basis verlässliche Länderdaten zur Religionszugehörigkeit in den Referenzstichjahren 2000 und 2010 vorzulegen. Die Datenbank erfasst alle Staaten Europas einschliesslich der Türkei. Die relationale Struktur der Datenbank und der Online-Zugang ermöglichen es zudem, dass Forscherinnen und Forscher unterschiedlicher Disziplinen länderspezifische Daten mit den jeweiligen landesprachlichen Benennungen der Religionsgemeinschaften selbst eintragen können. Das Forscherteam der Universität Luzern stellt die SMRE als Plattform bereit, vereinheitlicht die Daten nach länderübergreifenden Standards und entwickelt Verfahren, um die Güte der Daten zu bestimmen und aus den solcher Massen klassierten Daten eine verlässliche Schätzung der Verteilung der Religionszugehörigkeit in Europas Staaten zu ermitteln. Die SMRE setzt auf eine breite interdisziplinäre und internationale Kooperation mit Partnern wie die ETH und PEW-Foundation. Die Daten der SMRE sollen für zahlreiche Fragestellungen und Projekte der empirischen Religionsforschung eine neue Datengrundlage schaffen und der Politik und Öffentlichkeit verlässliche Grundzahlen zum strittigen Thema Religion bereitstellen. Mehr zum Projekt finden Sie unter www.smre-data.ch.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 23.01.2015

Active participation

Self-organised

Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Software

Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE). Religious Affiliation in Europe - an empirical problem.The role of religion in European societies has become a prominent topic of public and scientific debate. In the context of contemporary European societies questions concerning religion figure large when it comes to identities and social integration. The role of the different Christian traditions, the degree of secularization and the status of more recently immigrated religious minorities, especially of Muslims, are contested. Consequently, statistics on religious affiliation are frequently used (or mis-used) as political arguments. Data on religious affiliation are regularly brought forward in debates about the strength, predominance and acceptance of various religious groups.Despite the growing importance of this statistical information, social science research has thus far not lent much attention to the question of religious affiliation and its precise measurement. In fact, social scientists (as well as politicians) use figures on religious affiliation which, to the surprise of an empirically minded researcher, differ vastly. Moreover, for Europe as a whole as for important European countries such as France and Great Britain it is currently impossible to give reliable figures on the religious affiliation of its population.The «Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE)» has been set up to change this situation. Over the course of three years, data from a wide range of sources have been collected by two researchers of the University of Lucerne. These data were integrated into a new database designed especially for this purpose. The existing metadatabase already includes statistics on religious affiliation for 42 European countries (including Turkey) cover-ing two periods of reporting, namely 2000 (1996-2005) and 2010 (2006-2015). During the project the number of cases will be expanded and the structure of the SMRE will be re-engineered. The new relational database concept will make the whole process of data collection, data correction, data classification and data estimation transparent to the scientific community.Thus the revised project will produce reliable estimates for all European countries including Russia and Turkey. During the three year period starting in January 2015 fresh data will be added to the already existing data set, especially in order to add the census results of 2010 and later, which will be published in the next few years. All data of the SMRE will be transferred to an internet based data storage engine right from the start. A front-end interface for users will designed to make international collaboration based on the SMRE come true. Any scientist interested into the problem of religious affiliation in Europe will be able to upload and document her or his data. All data will be double-checked by the SMRE-research team. Two related international workshops will be held in the course of the project to foster international collaboration und exchange on research related to the general problem of religious affiliation.