The Nova Research Centre

The Nova Research Centre is one of those institutions that seems to have quietly appeared on the horizon without much fanfare and yet it is a profoundly helpful source of information and resource.  Who are they and what do they do? 

The focus for Nova is Europe and Mission.  The Director of the centre is Dr Darrell Jackson who is well known to many in Eastern European nations where he has spent a good number of years in mission circles.  Jim Memory, who is connected to the European Christian Mission is the Associate Director and there is a small admin team backed up by occasional specialist researchers who are used on particular projects.

Nova works in five key areas and they list them as:

1.      Field research looking at various aspects of mission in Europe.

2.      Specific research on a commissioned basis.  Commissions usually come from denominational groups or mission agencies.

3.      Publishing both in print and electronically.

4.      The development of research led teaching programmes.

5.      Developing a historical missions archive focused in Europe.

The team in based at Redcliffe College in Gloucester, England which is a missions orientated college that has traditionally prepared people for mission outside of the UK and has some similarity with All Nations College in the UK.

What sort of mission research does Nova engage in?  A recent study – Mapping Migration:  Mapping Churches’ Respones – Europe Study, is a good example of the helpful mixture of sound sociological research infused with a missiological intent.  The report contains 132 pages of information, analysis and reflection on migration within the European Union nations.  Its mainly a country by country analysis but there are some wider reflections on the total situation for mission in relation to migration issues. 

The web site www.novaresearch.eu gives an indication of the breadth of their interest and ambition in terms of the future.  The missions database section is clearly “work in progress” and at this stage is far from complete but you can see where they are going and it is encouraging.  Nova sums up their mission statement in these words, “Nova strives to be a premier point of information about mission in Europe in order to maximize the strategic impact of Mission Agencies and Churches in Europe.”

Check out their web site – in particular, the regular news section is informative and well written.

Martin Robinson  4 November 2010