Our projects (and history)
Initial phase (2020-2022)
Our first collaborative project was to co-create an abstract, titled “The Mindful Researcher: Transforming Academia from Within“, that led to a presentation at the Contemplative Research Conference (CRC) hosted by Mind & Life in November 2020.
We applied participatory methods, collaborative decision-making and co-design practices within our group, as well as for various emergent initiatives. Among these were a collaborative symposium at the APA Convention 2021, a “skill-building track” at ESRI 2021, online presentations and workshops, as well as developing and piloting new meeting formats with our community (e.g. “Mindful Presentations” and “Mindful Co-creation”).
During this time we hosted more than 30 online sessions overall for the community.
Current phase (2023-ongoing)
After a year-long pause, we hosted a workshop and presented a poster at ESRI 2023 in anticipation of the relaunch of our initiative.
In order to reconvene the Mindful Researchers community and initiate our co-creation process, we hosted two “kick-off” meetings and five “visioning” workshops in October-December 2023.
With Luciana Longo joining our team in 2025, we continued this co-creation process with a collaboratively designed survey, followed by a thorough analysis. We then invited community members to join three “work-out” groups in order to co-design action plans and implement solutions that respond to the community’s most urgent needs.
Three initiatives that already emerged from this process are:
- a relaunch of the Mindful Presentations format,
- a new online format called The Contemplative Café,
- an online community space on the Hylo platform.
We presented our emerging developments and plans at ISCR 2024, ESRI 2024, and a retreat in Plum Village in 2025. During ESRI 2025 and ESRI 2026 we support(ed) Mind & Life Europe in facilitating community activities and catalysing bottom-up initiatives on-site, while also hosting participatory Mindful Researchers sessions.
Going forward, we intend to implement further elements of the action plans, while also focusing on catalyzing and supporting other new and ongoing co-creative projects within our community.
Thus we hope to foster a vibrant ecosystem of community-driven practices, initiatives and collaborations that may also cross-pollinate and mutually enrich each other as well as adjacent fields.
Stay tuned for updates!