Welcome to the Religion & Foreign Policy Initiative (RFPI) based at the University of Sussex. The Religion & Foreign Policy Initiative engages in research projects and policy dialogues offering the latest thinking and practical policy recommendations on religion within international policy. Key thematics to research and policy work include Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB); and interreligious engagement and collaboration as a crucial tool for fostering pluralism, social cohesion and sustainable peace.

RFPI was launched in 4 April 2017 as the FoRB and Foreign Policy Initiative in a public Symposium at the University of Sussex on ‘The Influence of Religion in Global Politics’ co-organised with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief. It ran for an initial five-year period from 2017-22 before relaunching as the RFPI: the website archive for the previous FoRB & Foreign Policy Initiative can be accessed here.

NEW: Read our most recent Report on Religious & Interreligious Engagement in Peacebuilding in the Middle East Crisis

NEW: The Religion and Foreign Policy Initiative is supporting in February 2025 a high level Wilton Park close-door Policy Dialogue on the Role and Responsibilities of Religious Leaders in Times of War, Atrocities and Polarisation In partnership with the British Embassy to the Holy See and Globethics, and in association with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).