For the next two years, Yale University and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation will expand the Faith & Globalization initiative into a major University-wide effort, housed at the Center for Faith & Culture:

1. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation will base its United States operation at Yale University, employing a small team of staff to work across the range of the Foundation’s programs and help extend our reach across North America. 


2. We are building a global consortium of Universities which will introduce courses on Faith & Globalization and join the conversation worldwide. Initially this will include major universities in Europe and Asia, and we will announce our major new partnerships next year.


3. We will work with major polling partners to better understand the attitudes of people worldwide to religion and globalization; and develop an annual international student survey, building on the exploratory work done by the Global 21 student network this year.


4. We will expand the website created in conjunction with the Faith and Globalization course to become the go-to site for the issues of faith and globalization. Drawing on the resource materials collected for the course, as well as interviews and comments by the lecturers and guest participants, we will produce materials for professors.


5. Research collaborations is one of the most exciting opportunities for our work with Yale. The Divinity School will be a co-sponsor of several research projects involving Muslim and Christian dialogue that will be important to the advancement of the Initiative.


6. We will produce a major book on faith & globalization.


7. We will explore the creation of other publications which can bring these questions to a wider public audience.


8. We will establish an international summer internship for students with exchanges between Yale University and the TBFF’s offices in London, to engage in collaborative projects both intellectual and practical, which advance our joint agenda. The students will come from a range of academic backgrounds.


9. A forum in 2010 and 2012 will be held at Yale for Muslims and Christians that allows leaders of these two communities to build on and deepen the impact of the Common Word engagements begun at Yale in the summer of 2008. From 2010 onwards, the forum and dialogue will increase Jewish participation.


10. We will develop a set of seminars and workshops worldwide that will engage business and policy leaders during the next two years. They must be part of the conversations. This will include a high-level international conference of business leaders at Yale next Fall that Tony Blair will host with President Rick Levin.


11. Different parts of the world have different perspectives on this issue, and interaction between them is vital. Following the successful initiative between Yale and the National University of Singapore in November, we will organise more joint-teaching sessions by video-conference with other Universities as they take up the Faith & Globalization course to bring a global perspective to the examination of these issues.


12. New areas of research work will tackle some of the difficult issues – such as religion, conflict and reconciliation; and how religion adapts to globalization as well as how globalization can be infused with a stronger sense of values.


13. We will build on the current collaboration between the Divinity School and the School of Management  to increase the cross-disciplinary input to our work and bring expertise from other Schools. We look forward to inviting other Deans and Directors to participate.