News – Contemplative Scientific Collaboration

Events

Contemplative Scientific Collaboration: a Shared Vision for a Mindful Research Culture

Post author By Wolfgang Lukas
Post date 5th June 2021
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This coming week, at the 2021 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute (SRI) that spans from June 6-11, we are happy to present a poster on the “Mindful Researchers” initiative. You can also watch a short video that introduces the poster and summarizes our work.

Here is a link to the SRI poster page for registered participants.

As always, your feedback is very welcome!

Many thanks to all collaborators, especially Dav Clark, Enrico Fucci, Dara James, Annika Lübbert, Wolfgang Lukas, Francesco Noera, Mary Rees, and Frank Schumann.

References and supporting materials

Open Science / Research Culture

B.R. Caron (2020). Open Scientist Handbook.
S. Beck et al. (2020). The Open Innovation in Science Research Field: A Collaborative Conceptualisation Approach. Industry and Innovation.
M. Boisot, M. Nordberg, S. Yami, and B. Nicquevert (2011). Collisions and Collaboration: The Organization of Learning in the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC. Oxford University Press.
Open Science Collaboration (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of Psychological Science. Science 349 (6251):aac4716.
C. Woolston (2020). Postdoc survey reveals disenchantment with working life. Nature Career Feature.
N.N. Trakakis (2020). How universities are crushing academics. ABC Religion & Ethics.
Nature (2019). A kinder research culture is possible. Nature 574, 5–6.
Various authors (2019). Publish or perish for PhD students? Nature Human Behavior 3(10).
The Royal Society (2019). Research Culture: changing expectations.
The Royal Society. Changing expectations.
R. Willén (2018). ‘New academia’ — a safe harbour for researchers who love science. Medium.
E. Blackburn et al. (2020). Lindau Guidelines 2020.
U. Frith (2020). Fast Lane to Slow Science. Trends Cogn Sci 24(1):1-2.

Community Building / Group Practices

D.S. Wilson et al. (2020). Core design principles for nurturing organization-level selection. Sci Rep 10, 13989.
Bhikkhu Bodhi (2016). The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Wisdom Publications.
S. Schrotta (2011). Wie wir klüger entscheiden: einfach, schnell, konfliktlösend. Styria Print.
J. Zimmermann and V. Coyle (2009). The Way of Council (2^nd Edition). Bramble Books.
D. Bohm (2004). On Dialogue (2^nd Edition). Routledge.
Art of Hosting. https://www.artofhosting.org/
A. Lübbert et al. (2020). From What Is to What If to Let’s Try: a Treasure-Box for the Playful Academic. Under review.
E. Fisher et al. Socio-Technical Integration Research (STIR).
Various authors (2001). Centered On the Edge: Mapping a Field of Collective Intelligence & Spiritual Wisdom. A study and report supported by the Fetzer Institute.
T. Patten (2018). A New Republic of the Heart: An Ethos for Revolutionaries. North Atlantic Books.

Contemplative Research

E. Thompson (2016). What is Mindfulness? An Embodied Cognitive Science Perspective. ISCS 2016 closing keynote.
Various authors (2019). Mindfulness. Current Opinion in Psychology 28.
N.T. van Dam et al. (2018). Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation. Perspectives on Psychological Science 13(1), 36–61.
J. Bristow (2019). Time for new thinking about mindfulness and social change. openDemocracy.

Events

The Mindful Researcher: Transforming Academia from Within

Post author By Wolfgang Lukas
Post date 9th November 2020
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After this year’s European Summer Research Institute (ESRI 2020) by Mind & Life Europe, an enthusiastic group of young researchers came together to collaborate on a proposal for the Contemplative Research Conference (CRC 2020) by Mind & Life. This event took place last weekend, and a 15′ paper presentation (see our abstract below) as well as a poster presentation were given by me on Saturday, November 7, 2020, with many of our collaborators participating in the discussion.

For a “follow-up and next steps” discussion, please join us on Zoom this Thursday, November 12, 2020 from 17:00-18:00 CET.

The Mindful Researcher:
Transforming Academia from Within

Today’s academic environment is dominated by fierce competition for scarce resources. The majority of researchers struggle with chronic publication and career advancement pressures. Moreover, a lack of collaboration and support structures, rewards based on publication metrics, and increasing workload often lead to reduced quality of research (e.g., publication bias and hyped results) and life (e.g., burnout). In this process, science loses invaluable protagonists on the urgent quest to respond to our societal, humanitarian and ecological challenges.

Under such systemic pressures, researchers (particularly contemplative practitioners) also face the challenge of enacting their values through their academic work. Consequently, they have been increasingly advocating that academia be rendered more compassionate, generous and inclusive.

As a growing collaborative, we explore the values, practices, and structures that can sustain such a transformation. How can diverse stakeholders, including funding agencies and the public, contribute to this change? How can interdisciplinary collaboration and mutual support be skillfully embraced by research communities? What resources can social, embodied, or contemplative practices and research provide in this direction? How can they assist researchers in maintaining their grounding in compassion, generosity and deliberate action?

Our vision for transforming academia focuses on practices that align larger social structures and collaborative projects with individual needs and values. We present possible pathways to integrate these practices and foster skill and integrity in our academic environments. Furthermore, we invite participants to join our interdisciplinary dialogue and collaborative exploration, to advance an academic and research culture that is alive with purpose and meaning.

Many thanks to our collaborators who birthed and supported this co-creative process: Dav Clark, Annika Lübbert, Wolfgang Lukas, Sophie-Anne Perkins, Mary Rees, Frank Schumann, Mareike Smolka, Fr. Francis Tiso, and Marieke van Vugt, with invaluable contributions by Oussama Abdoun, Amy Cohen Varela, Gabriela Cortez, Rocio Martinez Vivot, Heather McDonald, Daniel Meling, Francesco Noera, Willeke Rietdijk, Hendrik Stark, and Mathis Trautwein.

Events

Contemplative Collaboration: a vision for a mindful academic culture

Post author By Wolfgang Lukas
Post date 21st June 2019
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On June 4th, 2019, I had the honor to present and discuss the CSC project and vision at the University of Graz. The presentation was titled: Contemplative Collaboration: a vision for a mindful academic culture.

The livestream recording is available online here. Please watch and join the conversation – your feedback is greatly appreciated!

The discussion sparked new ideas and possible directions for the CSC project, and reflected a widespread need among academics: to discover and implement an alternative to the runaway competition that governs academia today.

Many thanks to Richard Parncutt and Annemarie Seither-Preisler from the Centre for Systematic Musicology for giving me this wonderful opportunity to share and discuss the CSC vision!

Events

ISCS 2016

The International Symposium for Contemplative Studies (ISCS 2016), hosted by the Mind & Life Institute, is currently taking place at the Sheraton Harbor and Marina in San Diego, CA.

We are excited to give our first presentation on the proposed collaboration model, titled “Towards a CERN-inspired Collaboration Infrastructure for Contemplative Studies”, on Saturday, 12th November at 3:15-3:45pm. Please come and participate in the conversation!