Simon Polinder is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department History of International Relations at Utrecht University. He is associated with the project Reimagining Religion, Security and Social Transformation, part of the research agenda of the Joint Initiative for Strategic Religious Action (JISRA) programme.

He was an associate lector ('professor') at the Christian University of Applied Sciences Ede for eight years. He worked with several organisations (a.o. Lelie zorggroep, Woord en Daad and the CHE) on shaping their organization identity and the professional identity of the employees, using qualitative, quantitative and action-based research methods. For some of the publications, see the HBO kennisbank.

He studied History of International Relations (MA) at Utrecht University, Political Philosophy (MA) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and attended various courses on religion, conflict, peacebuilding and religious freedom at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. He did his Ph.D at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen and the Humanities Faculty at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His dissertation is on Religion and International Relations

He was a lecturer at the department of International Relations and International Organization at the University of Groningen for four years. He also worked as a researcher at Prisma, an association of Christian organizations for development cooperation.

He is the editor (with Govert Buijs) of the volume Christian Faith, Philosophy and International Relations: the Lamb and the Wolf (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019). 

His most recent book (with Menno Kamminga) is Hope in Times of Division. The Story of Reinhold Niebuhr and His Lessons for the World. With a Foreword by Beatrice de Graaf and a recommendation by Arend Jan Boekestijn.