For more than 40 years, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research has a record of rigorous, applied research on religious organizations, including the study of churches, denominations, seminaries, and other religious communities. This record of congregational research has earned the Institute an international reputation as an important bridge between the scholarly community and the practice of faith communities.
Our work is guided by a disciplined understanding of the interrelationship between the life and resources of American religious institutions and the possibilities and limits placed on those institutions by the social and cultural context in which they work.
The Hartford Institute was established at Hartford Seminary (now Hartford International University) in 1981 under the name the Center for Social and Religious Research. The founding of this organization formalized a research program started by the Seminary in 1974 by Jackson Carroll and David Roozen. Since that time, the Institute has initiated more than 80 projects, which were supported by over $20 million in external funding, and has developed strong connections to local congregations, denominational structures, theological seminaries, and other religious institutions.