Research Culture and Quality

Theology and Religious Studies is an interdisciplinary domain that encompasses a large number of academic subdisciplines, including philosophy, history, sociology, anthropology, psychology and some areas of literary theory. Scholars in this domain study different religious and philosophical traditions based on historical, literary, systematic and empirical methods, both from an ‘insider’s perspective’ and by examining religion and ideology as a social, historical and cultural phenomenon. More information about the research culture of this domain can be found on the website of Quality and Relevance in the Humanities (QRiH).

Together with the Disciplinary Council of Religious Studies and Theology (DRT; previously DGO), NOSTER has developed Guidelines for Evaluating Research Output in Theology and Religious Studies. The document assists Dutch scholars and research units in evaluating publishers and journals in the field of theology and religious studies. It offers a broadly supported vision of publication cultures in theology and religious studies and ties in well with the Strategy Evaluation Protocol (SEP), which explicitly leaves it to the research units to be assessed to formulate their own criteria for evaluation. It replaces the previous DGO list of journals and the QRiH list of journals and publishers drafted by a NOSTER domain panel.