The Centre for the Study of World Christianity (CSWC) is a research centre based in New College, the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. It was founded in the University of Aberdeen by Andrew F. Walls as the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World in 1982, but later moved by Walls to the University of Edinburgh in 1986. The Centre is currently directed by Brian Stanley.
The Centre promotes historical, theological, and social scientific research in the field of World Christianity – broadly speaking, Christianity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and eastern Europe, as well as diasporic forms of non-Western Christianity emerging in contexts such as Western Europe and North America. Closely related to the Centre is the peer-reviewed academic journal Studies in World Christianity, published three times a year. The Centre is one of the main sponsors of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity, and maintains its own research archive.
Some notable books produced by scholars affiliated with the Centre include:
As part of the School of Divinity, it offers a one-year MTh teaching program and a PhD research degree producing, by the first decade of the twenty first century, 129 MTh and 65 PhD theses. Some of the Centre's notable alumni include: