Freedoms of thought and belief are critical to the academic enterprise. Institutions of higher learning constitute a deep well of interest and concern for the protection of the rights of free thought, free expression, and free exchange. The Institute on Religion and Public Policy, an internationally recognized defender of human rights and religious freedom, has launched the International Consortium on Religion, Culture, and Dialogue as a vehicle for students, faculty and academic leaders and institutions to contribute more directly to the understanding and advancement of freedom and cooperation around the world.

Higher education faces new challenges and opportunities in the Twenty-first Century. Globalization makes us instantly and intensely more aware of circumstances everywhere in the world and often more capable to respond to them. The carefully constructed "academic" distance of the Ivory Tower confronts both the idealism of youth and its own new relevance as the implications of scholarship increasingly suggest action to alleviate human suffering and transcend conflict. Freedoms of belief and expression, central to academic life and the values by which colleges and universities are constituted, are an especially important area in which scholarly awareness of threats to human rights create empathy in the very DNA of our institutions themselves. If knowledge is to be sought in a globalizing world, those who seek it must stand for certain rights that can form the foundation of a globally shared scholarly enterprise. The International Consortium on Religion, Culture, and Dialogue proposes to act as an agent of colleges and universities in the propagation of these values and, in turn, to bring the processes by which these rights are asserted and defended within the reach of researchers and students.

The International Consortium on Religion, Culture, and Dialogue is a collaborative forum and network through which universities, colleges, and other educational institutions can participate in the research, development and advancement of fundamental rights, inter-religious dialogue and cooperation, and international cooperation. The Consortium at its heart will support cooperative endeavors no single institution could accomplish by itself.

1. improve communication and cooperation and develop strategic partnerships among colleges, universities, and educational institutions interested in the interplay of religion, public policy, and fundamental rights;
2. facilitate dialogue between world leaders and educators on moral and religious issues to address key international and national disputes, conflicts, questions, issues, etc;
3. enhance the international reputation of associated institutions in the areas of religion, public policy and human rights;
4. establish within member institutions undergraduate and graduate degree-granting programs in human rights and religious freedom

1. Creation of a Congressional Fellows Program: graduates from participating educational institutions will have the opportunity to be placed within a congressional office to work full-time on religious freedom issues;
2. Implementation of annual regional working groups to locate, examine, and solve specific issues dealing with religious freedom;
3. Establishment of monthly conference calls with the Secretariat of the Consortium for discussion of related issues, planning of events, and the development of Consortium programs and ideas;
4. Internship program with locations in Washington and across the globe giving opportunities for consortium students to experience public policy from an inter-faith, non-partisan learning environment;
5. Access to research and resources covering the latest events and information in the arenas of religion and public decision making;
6. Creation of a strategic network database of member universities, public officials, and foreign religious and political leaders for use by Congress members;
7. Participation in the Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom;
8. Opportunity for travel to international conferences, events, and negotiations for both faculty and students, with unique access to decision makers from multiple disciplines and areas of interest;
9. Support from the Secretariat of the Consortium including logistics, research, and advertising and marketing assistance for member institutions’ programs;
10. Installation of cross-registration programs allowing students enrolled in participating Consortium institutions to take advantage of numerous academic offerings provides at other member institutions;
11. Formation of professor exchange programs for faculty from participating Consortium institutions;
12. Free subscription to the Consortium magazine where institutions can publish materials and place advertisements;
13. Creation of a website that describes various academic institutions and other organizations that are involved in religious liberty endeavors.  The list is a growing one and there is no present site that lists these institutions and what they do. Maintain on the website a list of all upcoming conferences on religious liberty.  Section of the website will list all current publications with articles on religious liberty that gives people information about where to find good current literature;
14. Annual meeting of member institutions;
15. Consortium projects operated with, in, and through member institutions.

In order to monitor the growth and effectiveness of the International Consortium on Religion, Culture, and Dialogue the following measures will be taken:

• Analysis of growth of new member institutions as indication of success;
• Track the extent to which the database of persons and information has been accessed;
• Interview collegiate fellows and interns and their employers to determine how they value their work-related experiences through the Consortium;
• Monitor the number of participants in the cross-university programs;
• Interview students and faculty in the cross-registration and professor exchange programs to gauge the benefits and weaknesses of studying and teaching in a varied academic environments;
• Evaluate Consortium sponsored events by subject matter, attendance, prestige and intercollegiate coordination, establishing how critical the Consortium involvement was to the success of the project;
• Draft a resolution to be introduced in the United Stated Congress supporting the concept of the Consortium and the creation of an undergraduate degree in Human Rights and Religious Freedom, with similar resolutions to be introduce in the home nations and states of other participating universities;
• List the number of courses in the field of religious freedom added to university curricula;