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CIRCL: Contemplative Innovation + Research Collaborative Lab

Mission

Catalyzing transdisciplinary research on contemplation to generate knowledge and know-how to enhance flourishing. 

Vision

CIRCL is: (i) a dynamically experimental space in the Contemplative Commons; and (ii) a transdisciplinary research collaborative of faculty on UVA’s Grounds and beyond invested in humanistic, scientific, and creative understandings and applications of contemplation.

Activities

  • Generating: We bring in-house expertise on contemplation and research methods to initiate and catalyze
critical research from pilots to multi-year projects with collaborators to generate new knowledge and know-how.
  • Facilitating: We support stakeholders as partner-consultants in the generation of solutions that enhance flourishing in their target applications. 
  • Hosting: We provide lab space and services to host innovative interdisciplinary research for faculty collaborators at UVA and beyond.

Principles

CIRCL adheres to a fourfold set of principles that serve as guiding criteria for collaborative research projects:

  1. Contemplative: Projects have a contemplative dimension.
  2. Transdisciplinary: Projects have 2 or more collaborators with distinct disciplinary expertise. This is based on an understanding that contemplation necessitates multifaceted inquiry. 
  3. Experimental: Projects abide by a spirit of inquiry and discovery. Creative novel experimentation and multi-method approaches are encouraged.
  4. Output-Driven: Projects have discrete outputs — tangible and intangible. Though not limited to publications, publication platforms are provided 
 (see below).

Services

  • Contemplative Facilitators: We train contemplative facilitators in a diverse suite of practices with critical sensitivities to guide practices in studies and contemplative interventions. 
  • First-Person Methods: We train researchers in rigorous methods of first-person inquiry, including micro-phenomenological interviews, autoethnography, and related techniques to support the articulation of experience. 
  • Contemplative Design: We provide in-house consultation services for collaborators to custom design contemplative practices based on individual differences and specific contexts.

Model

Research

Seek to understand the underlying dynamics, processes, and mechanisms of contemplative practices and correlative emergent experiences.

Innovation

Design, augment, and enhance contemplative practices sensitive to individual differences and contexts, based on transdisciplinary research.

Overlapping Domains

Methods
Mind1st- and 2nd-person methods: micro-phenomenology, questionnaires, autoethnography, visual elicitation, other qualitative measures
Body3rd-person methods: cognitive and behavioral tasks on mobile devices; headbands, wristbands, respiration monitors, goggles, etc.; EEG and MRI (offsite),  other quantitative measures
World1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person methods: micro-phenomenology, questionnaires, tasks on smartphones, elicitations, wearables, etc.