The Metanexus Local Societies Initiative (LSI) provides three-year Basic Grants to fund organizational and program costs for locally-acting, globally-networked membership societies dedicated to the constructive engagement of science and religion. Metanexus LSI is meant to support open and dynamic, transdisciplinary dialogue groups with the aim of discovering new scientific and spiritual insights and developing integral approaches to foundational questions.   As of mid-2005, two hundred societies have been founded on the campuses of major research universities, elite liberal arts colleges, for-profit educational institutions, seminaries, state universities, private religious schools, graduate academies, and faith communities in 36 nations around the world. The Metanexus LSI program is creating long-term, collaborative networks of societies and their members and host institutions for vibrant and broadly significant exchange.

Each Metanexus LSI Basic Grant provides $15,000 (US Dollars) of support, paid over three years ($5,000 per year). As one goal of the program is to provide incentive for institutional support for the science religion dialogue, each applicant must be able to match the grant with at least $15,000 in additional funding over the three years ($5,000 per year). Funds may be used for society events, speakers, the purchase of books for group study, communications, publicity, outreach, generation of materials, travel directly related to the project, registration for the annual Metanexus LSI conference, and basic infrastructure.  The LSI grant is not intended to fund course design, lecture series, research, or publication and translation efforts directly, although members of local societies engage in all of these activities.  The goal of LSI is to provide seed-money in the form of a challenge grant for the formation and maintenance of membership societies, which would then provide the necessary organizational support for efforts to promote and expand the science and religion dialogue their communities, as well as to promote networking among societies and institutions.   We are looking for appropriate academic rigor in approaching profound questions, innovation and creativity in programming, and effectiveness in the use of the funds.

A panel of judges, whose decisions are final, will select the winners of the grants.  Each Metanexus LSI grant recipient will be featured on the website.

In addition, there will be a number of Supplemental Grant Prizes of $10,000 each awarded annually to those societies who have already been awarded a Metanexus LSI Basic Grant that prove themselves particularly innovative, creative, and effective in their efforts to engage in and promote the religion and science dialogue.   Thus there is a potential for funding of up to $45,000 for each society.  See more details below.

PROGRAM GOALS

1. To promote the exploration of issues at the intersection of science and religion in local societies around the world and to promote the ongoing development of a collaborative network of such societies, their members, and their sponsoring institutions.
2. To encourage a greater appreciation of the religious and spiritual significance of science and of the value of religious insights for science and society.
3. To broaden and diversify the participation of individuals and groups involved in an open and constructive dialogue between the natural, social, and human sciences and the world’s religions and spiritual traditions.
4. To exemplify a spirit of a "humble approach" in the quest for understanding, which links the progress of scientific inquiry with metaphysical, religious, philosophical, and moral concerns in a coherent, intellectually responsible, and collaborative manner.
5. To stimulate new research into material, human, and spiritual realities, to pose new questions about ourselves, our communities, our cosmos, and the divine, and to produce and disseminate such research in the form of books, journals, newsletters, CD-ROMs and DVDs, websites, and other publications via a variety of media to the widest possible audience.