International Approaches to Islamic Studies in Higher Education

This press release from HEFCE, concerns the report 'International Approaches to Islamic Studies in Higher Education' authored by the Subject Centres for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies and Philosophical and Religious Studies.

Following the HEFCE conference on 17 April, Islamic studies: the way forward in the UK, we have published the conference proceedings on our website at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/islamic/conf/.

We have also published the report 'International Approaches to Islamic Studies in Higher Education' at http://www.hefce.ac.uk/Pubs/rdreports/2008/rd07_08/.

• This research found that the following general themes have emerged as important developments in Islamic Studies in higher education across most of the countries concerned:
• interdisciplinary and trans-regional centres for the study of Islam and Muslims in the modern world
• networks of scholars, at national or regional levels, that encourage collaboration in research and teaching between universities
• the promotion of efforts to incorporate aspects of the training of local Muslim leaders, including imams, into higher education programmes
• individual modules related to Islamic Studies that can be pursued by students on a variety of degree courses or offered as outreach education courses, in a variety of learning and teaching modes.
  
  HEFCE is continuing to take the programme of work forward and will keep you informed of developments.