In 1991, Professor Diana L. Eck started engaging students in research, which later became the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.
By 2018, institutional growth of the field included 20 undergraduate programs with majors, minors, or certificates; four universities or seminaries with tenure track faculty positions; and 22 centers with an interfaith focus.
Like other disciplines with applied dimensions, it serves the public good by bringing its analysis to bear on practical approaches to issues in religiously diverse societies.
[citation needed] As an academic field, interreligious studies has been criticized about the involvement of practitioners and advocates of interfaith dialogue.
Some scholars say there is insufficient "skeptical detachment" from religiosity and, as noted in a 2016 New York Times article, "Many professors of religious studies bridle at the new field’s orientation toward real-world application rather than pure scholarship.