In 2007, the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics" was established at the University of Münster. Some 200 academics from 20 disciplines of the humanities and the social sciences and from eleven countries deal with the sensitive relationship of religion and politics, which has shaped all ages and cultures. It is nationally the largest research association of its kind and of the 37 Clusters of Excellence in Germany, it is the only one to deal with religions.

The approx. 60 research projects and 47 Ph.D. projects range from Antiquity to the present and from Latin America and Europe to the Arab and the Asian world. Researchers in history, Catholic and Protestant as well as Muslim theology, Jewish studies, law, ethnology, archaeology,political science, sociology of religion as well as literary scholars, social scientists and scholars of Islam are participating. The German Research Foundation (DFG) supports the research association within the scope of the Excellence Initiative with 37 million Euros until 2012. In the process, additional professorships and numerous posts for junior academics have been provided in Münster.

The members of the Cluster of Excellence deal with fundamental research and at the same time seek to provide answers to pressing questions of the future in a globalised
society. Organised in four thematic pillars: the studies are divided into the fields of research normativity, staging, integrative procedures and violence. The projects are, for example, “Religion and Biopolitics” , “Another History of Islam”, “Initiation – Circumcision – Identity”, “The Burning and the Censorship of Books in Late Medieval England” or “Analyses of the Rhetoric of Violence in Late Antiquity”.

A Graduate School with currently 47 doctoral students and a Centre for Research Communication, advancing the dialogue with the media and the public, are part of the Cluster of Excellence. Utmost importance is attached to the exchange with international academics, who are regular visitors at the Cluster. Moreover, the concept also includes equality between male and female academics, family-friendly working conditions, and relieving the members of teaching activities in order to create ample space for research.