Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

Research: The Institute's academic investigations are conducted by its Research Department. The work produced at Acton Research includes the disciplines of philosophy, economics, theology, and history, among others, and it includes the contributions of both in-house research fellows, affiliates, and of invited scholars. Additionally, the materials and research produced at the Acton Institute are delivered locally in Grand Rapids as well as at national and international conferences with the goal of reaching the scholarly community at large. The Research Department publishes books, a journal, the Acton Institute's Religion & Liberty magazine, Religion and Liberty Online, monographs, and occasional papers, along with essays at respected and scholarly online outlets. The Research Department with Acton's Marketing and Communications Department produces the weekly Acton Line podcast. The Journal of Markets & Morality is a semi-annual refereed journal that provides a forum for scholars from many disciplines to engage issues concerning the morality of the marketplace. Select primary sources are translated and edited for wider dissemination and use by scholars. Non-Christians have also written articles and books addressing relevant themes of interest to the Acton Institute, such as liberty, religious freedom, and the free economy. The Research Department also manages Acton's academic scholarship programs. Fellowships are awarded to provide financial assistance to promising doctoral candidates, graduate students, and seminarians who are advancing an understanding of the connection between economic liberty and religious values. Free Market Mini-Grants help fund university course development and faculty research in market economics at colleges, universities, and seminaries in the United States and Canada. The Freedom and Prosperity Grant promotes research by scholars internationally into the relationship between freedom and prosperity using the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Indexes. The Calihan Academic Grants provide financial assistance to scholars and graduate students whose academic work shows outstanding potential to advance understanding in the relationship between theology and the principles of the free and virtuous society. The annual Novak Award recipient is presented with a prize to acknowledge and reward new research on the relationship between religion, economic freedom, and the free and virtuous society. Lastly, the Research Department manages or helps manage a number of programs, including (1) conferences for scholars, graduate students, public intellectuals and leading religious figures, (2) an academic colloquium held annually in Grand Rapids, (3) and the scholarly and programmatic outreach of Acton's Rome office. Internationally, we have held conferences on various topics such as economic liberty, justice, economic history, poverty and development, Catholic social teaching, war and peace, Protestant social thought, Judaism and the economy, property rights, monetary policy, and limited government.

The Center for Social Flourishing focuses the Acton Institute's work-promoting the ideas necessary for a free and virtuous society-on the alleviation of poverty and related social problems in the United States. The Center does this through conferences, research, a partnership network, and film and media, including a new feature-length documentary movie about attempts to address poverty in the United States.The Center's team also operates a related initiative of the Acton Institute: the PovertyCure project, which is an expression of Acton's work on global poverty and development. In 2024, the Center organized four conferences in collaboration with Acton's Programs department, including the biennial PovertyCure global virtual summit, and monthly listening sessions with local Grand Rapids nonprofits. The Center also developed a new website for the Center for Social Flourishing and redesigned the PovertyCure website, which makes the initiative's video curriculum available for streaming from the website. The largest individual project of the Center is the new documentary on poverty in the United States. Directed by Michael Miller, who is also the Center's director, the film explores the flaws of large-scale attempts to solve poverty in the US. In 2024, the team filmed about 50 interviews in various cities around the country. The film is expected to be completed by fall 2025, at which point it will be submitted for film festivals. The Center continues to promote other Acton media products, including the PovertyCure series and the documentary Poverty, Inc. Many churches, schools, and universities have incorporated the PovertyCure series resource into their curriculums. Acton's documentary Poverty, Inc. has earned more than 45 film festival awards to date, including the $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award.The film has screened more than 500 times in 28 countries.Its impact continues, and it streams on multiple platforms.