Karim Schelkens (°1977) is a full time Associate Professor in religious history at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology (Tilburg University) and is also Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (KULeuven).

In 2007, he obtained his PhD in Leuven, which was crowned with the C. de Clercq Award by the Royal Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. He has been a postdoctoral research fellow for the FWO-Flanders and earned a degree in postdoctoral studies at the Canadian Université Laval.

Schelkens has served as Secretary General to the European Society for Catholic Theology (2012-2018), is also a member of the academic board of the international research project on 'The History of the Desire for Christian Unity' (Istituto per le Scienze religiose, Bologna), and is part of the Academic Council of UCSIA (Antwerp University), and has served as a member in the NWO-Commission Open Competition Humanities and Social Sciences.

Schelkens has authored/editored some twenty academic books and numerous contributions regarding the contemporary history of religion in Modern and Late Modern Europe, on colonial history. Currently, he specializes in the field of Biography and Religion. In this regard, he published the acclaimed and widely received biographies of Godfried Danneels and Johannes Willebrands.

From 2018 to 2020, he was Director of the TST research program on 'The Transformation of Religion in Late Modernity' and Director of the International Master Program on 'Christianity and Society' from 2019 to 2021. At present he is vice dean of Research at Tilburg's theological faculty.

Istvan Csonta, Redaction History of the Conciliar Decree on the Lay Apostolate Apostolicam Actuositatem, KU Leuven, 2020. Fidentia Research Fellowship (co-dir. with Prof. Dr. M. Lamberigts).

Jos Moons, The Spirit and the Church. A Redaction-Historical and Theological-Historical Analysis of the Pneumatological Renewal in Lumen Gentium’, Tilburg University, 2018.(co-dir. with Prof. Dr. H. Witte).

Dries Bosschaert,  Joys and Hopes of Louvain Theologians. The Genesis of Christian Anthropologies and their diverse Reception in Gaudium et Spes, KU Leuven, 2017 (Co-dir. with Prof. Dr. M. Lamberigts).

Erik Sengers, Roomsch socioloog – sociale bisschop. Johannes Aengenent als ideoloog en bestuurder van de katholieke sociale beweging, 1873-1935, UvT, 2016 (co-dir. with Prof. Dr. P. Van Geest)

Cassien Mulindahabi, Les deux récents synodes pour l’Afrique. Étude comparative et critique, KU Leuven, 2015. (Co-dir. with Prof. Dr. J. Verstraeten).

Sandra Peréz Arenas, The Doctrine of the Elementa Ecclesialia Before, During and After Vatican II and Its Implications for the Relationship Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Communities, KU Leuven, 2013. Research Fellowship International Academic Exchange Between Chile and Belgium (Co-dir. with Prof. Dr. J. Haers).

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