Our Research unit will engage in a collaborative and programmatic investigation into tolerance and the multifaceted challenges associated with the concept and practice of tolerance in order to shed new light not only on difficulty, but also on the possibility of tolerance. Our investigation will be guided by the disapproval-respect model of tolerance, which has its roots in the important insights from multipledisciplines, especially political,social, and moral philosophy as well as social psychology. While we are confident that the model is well suited to serve this guiding function, the model itself will be put to the test during the investigation. It is open to further development (specification, articulation and amendment), but also revision, or even rejection and replacement if it does not stand the test. Our main goal The main objective of the Research Unit is to build a theoretically coherent and empirically robust framework for understanding the foundations, dynamics, and (intended as well as unintended) outcomes of tolerance in plural societies. Our concerted effort will move the state of the art forward with a powerful conceptual device for understanding tolerance based on consolidated, mutually supportive insights from different disciplines. We are confident that it will pave the way not only to a scientific but also a public appreciation, in Western societies and beyond, of tolerance that is both realistic (i.e., expects of tolerance neither too much nor too little) and uncontaminated by ideology and politicization.