“Opening in the Midst of Uncertainty: Expanding Time”
Applications are now closed.
Introduction
The European Summer Research Institute (ESRI) is our flagship event bringing together around 140 researchers, scientists, educators, practitioners, artists, and contemplatives across diverse fields. It is an intimate multi-day in-person event, upholding the scientific rigour of an academic conference in parallel with the experiential depth of a retreat.
ESRI 2026 will take place from 25th – 29th July 2026 (with arrival on the 24th and departure on the 30th) at Rangjung Yeshe Gomde, Austria. There will also be an MLE Retreat running in association to this year’s ESRI from 22nd – 24th July 2026.
The primary aim of ESRI is to further develop and promote the interdisciplinary community of contemplative science in Europe, with a special focus on preparing the next generation of researchers and practitioners in the field and building ‘gentle bridges’ (F. Varela) between an ever-widening array of disciplines. The program features interdisciplinary scholarly presentations and dialogue, inquiry through first-person experience, active contemplative practice, and ample intergenerational networking opportunities. Scientists, scholars, researchers, educators, clinicians, and professionals working in this field come together as a community to share ideas, knowledge, methodologies, and experiences from their lives and work, in order to bring about concrete advances in the field.
To get a taste of the kind of dialogues that take place at ESRI, we invite you to watch our YouTube series featuring conversations and interviews at previous ESRIs and MLE Retreats:
Day 2 Panel at ESRI 2025
Each morning's panel at the ESRI features a series of interdisciplinary presentations, anchored by moments of dialogue and contemplative practice. The Day 2 Panel at ESRI 2025 was entitled "Thinking and Researching from Where We Stand: Embodiment and Direct Experience in Science-Making" and brought to the fore some questions that are foundational to the enactive approach and neurophenomenological research. Featuring Prof Evan Thompson, Prof John Dunne, Prof Cliff Saron, Dr Hanne De Jaegher, Prof Marieke van Vugt, Dr Catherine Bastien-Ventura, and Dr Raphaële Jeune.
Conversations at ESRI 2025: Barbara Bogatin & Dr Cliff Saron
Two faculty members of ESRI 2025, professional cellist Barbara Bogatin and neuroscientist Cliff Saron, allow us to go behind the scenes of their longtime collaboration and partnership, demonstrating the many resonances, but also the deep, ongoing kinship, between their respective horizons of practice. Alongside many more transdisciplinary topics, they reflect on the craft of science as a ‘nested, acculturated set of practices, and the delicate enterprise of making explicit some of the implicit forms of knowing exercised through music.
Prof Evan Thompson and Prof Rebecca Todd retrace the genealogy of their respective trajectories, beginning from their early immersion in ‘para-academic,’ transdisciplinary ecosystems, through to their ongoing commitments in philosophy, neurophenomenology, cognitive neuroscience, the arts, improvisation, and systems thinking.
Conversations at ESRI 2025: Karen Holdaway Grøn & Prof Andreas Roepstorff
In this evocative conversation, museum director and curator, Karen Grøn, and interdisciplinary researcher and university professor, Andreas Roepstorff, offer us a window on what it means to work within the interstices of traditional disciplines and how the question of ethical action is alive for each of them as leaders within institutional contexts.
ESRI 2026
“Opening in the Midst of Uncertainty: Expanding Time”
It may well be that we have always lived in a world of flux, both socially and metaphysically, and with that, in a radical, irremediable form of uncertainty. But in recent years, it seems we have been made forcibly aware of this transience and the precarity of expectations it entails. The sense of urgency felt by many in these times—made palpable through the cascading effects of the climate catastrophe, the rapid escalation of conflict and polarisation, and the exponential acceleration of new technologies—calls us more than ever to critically reconsider our relationship to time, and our understanding of its multiple scales and rhythms. How does our understanding of time, through different onto-epistemological framings, shape the very realities we are witness to today; and how do these felt realities in turn influence our conceptualisation of time?
As beings in becoming, in a world of becoming, our horizon of awareness partially defines ourselves and our world. While grounding our awareness in the many challenges of our current moment, how can we extend our sense of temporality to include systems on the scale of species, ecosystems, and continents? What would it mean to expand our sense of social and historical time, both in the sense of enlarging it to include a longer arc of history and of acknowledging the radically unfinished and emergent nature of all interactions? What possibilities are there for other ways of experiencing and living time (‘chrono-diversity’) in societies with highly demanding and constricted temporal patterns? What is the ethical potential of embracing more pluralistic ways of organising time?
In this edition of the ESRI, each day will start with contemplative or embodied practices and a thought-provoking interdisciplinary panel that explores the generative questions of the day. The rest of the day will be dedicated to a deeper exploration of these questions in small groups facilitated by the faculty, interspersed with moments of practice. There will also be ample time for sharing ideas between groups, as well as interactive activities. The week will be broadly structured around an arc that explores theoretical frameworks of time for our present era (Day 1), lived experience and (inter)subjectivities of time (Day 2), contemplative and existential practices of time (Day 3), ethics, responsibility, and care through, within, and around time (Day 4), and concrete ways of relating differently to time (Day 5).
We are delighted to announce our planning committee for this year’s ESRI who are working hard behind the scenes to bring this year’s ESRI to life. In alphabetical order:
Dr Raphaële Jeune
Geshe Thabkhe Lodroe
Prof Maria E. Louw
Maša Rebernik
Dr Camilo Miguel Signorelli
Prof Julien Tempone-Wiltshire
Dr Francesco Tormen
Prof Marieke van Vugt
We are delighted to share our confirmed faculty so far for this year. In alphabetical order:
Prof John Dunne
Dr Hanne De Jaegher
Dr Raphaële Jeune
Dr Ven Barry Kerzin
Geshe Thabkhe Lodroe
Prof Maria E. Louw
Prof Lotte Meinert
Prof Alva Noë
Dr Sophie Orlando
Dr Nicole Peisl
Maša Rebernik
Dr Camilo Miguel Signorelli
Prof Julien Tempone-Wiltshire
Dr Francesco Tormen
Prof Martijn van Beek
Prof Marieke van Vugt
Dr Marc Wittmann
Venue
Rangjung Yeshe Gomde Germany – Austria lies in the heart of Europe, situated in a picturesque UNESCO world heritage site: the Salzkammergut of upper Austria. Surrounded by mountains, lakes and untouched nature, but still easily accessible, close to cities like Vienna, Salzburg and Munich, this centre is an ideal place for an event like ESRI, with ample space to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue and quiet reflection.
Gomde is a place of peace, reflection, and learning — brought into being by Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche, nurtured through the dedicated care of volunteers, and continually enriched by the presence and participation of all who visit. It offers a beautiful meditation hall, stunning gardens with a natural swimming pond, as well as a library, lounge, and a Rinchen shop, the proceeds of which support its monastic community in Nepal.
All activities and the majority of accommodation will be offered at Gomde. Some accommodation is also available in Shantihouse, a beautiful newly renovated guesthouse which is a short 20 minute walk away from Gomde (with a shuttle service between the two).
Who should attend?
ESRI fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and potential project collaborations, and thus is limited to 120 participants. A selection process identifies those whose interests are best matched to the annual theme.
Applicants should self-categorise into one of the following: Research Fellow, Senior Investigator, or Professional.
Research Fellows
This includes undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows conducting research in neuroscience, biological and medical sciences, experimental and clinical psychology, the social sciences, or the humanities. Students and early-career researchers and contemplative scholars who work in the interdisciplinary field of contemplative sciences and scholarship are encouraged to apply in this category.
Senior investigators
This includes established academic researchers, contemplative scholars and educators who hold university or college faculty appointments (full-time, clinical or adjunct).
Professionals
This includes professionals (e.g. educators, clinicians, therapists, HR managers, change agents) who are independent practitioners or affiliated with non-academic institutions. Individuals working in business and (social) entrepreneurship are included in this category.
Additional opportunities
European varela awards
Attendees of the ESRI are eligible to apply for the European Varela Awards (EVAs). These are grants of up to €23,500 awarded to junior scientists in the field of contemplative studies.
The application period for the EVA 2026 cycle starts this fall and the awardees will be announced via our MLE website, newsletter and social media in March 2027.
HYPHAE Journal
ESRI attendees will also have the opportunity to learn more about and meet the Editor-in-Chief of Hyphae, the new MLE academic journal dedicated to fostering and convening dialogue among scholars representing diverse perspectives on mind and life. EVA recipients and other scholars may be eligible to apply for publication, offering an additional avenue for those working in contemplative studies.
Accessibility
For those with any accessibility questions, or who may have specific mobility needs, please contact us directly on ESRI@mindandlife-europe.org if we are not already aware of those needs.
Rangjung Yeshe Gomde is largely wheelchair accessible. There is a drive directly to the front door of the main building. The main building includes a large elevator offering access to the main meditation hall (majority of the week’s events) and private rooms. The canteen, lounge, library, and shop are on the ground floor.
Please note that there is a small step into the canteen with double doors that can be opened from either side. Some areas of the garden are not wheelchair accessible. It would be recommended to book accommodation in Gomde instead of Shanti house which is further away. The MLE and Gomde teams are also on hand to provide support and find solutions for any issues that might arise.
Live captions will be provided for the morning panels in the main meditation hall. This will also be roughly organised according to different needs: one side for those who need to move around, stand, stretch, or stim, and another side for those who need more stillness and focus.
Noble silence is observed in the dormitory and camping areas from 10pm until the end of breakfast the next day. There will also be a designated quiet room for those who’d like to rest, downregulate, or have some solitude for some hours of every day.
In previous years, participants have had the opportunity to integrate into (optional) “home groups”, each with 5-6 people that serves as a mini-community for peer-to-peer support throughout the duration of the programme.
Fees
These prices cover the whole program, chosen accommodation type, and all food and drink.
Please note that indoor accommodation is limited, and will be assigned on a first come, first served basis.
Financial Support
Participants of ESRI (and the MLE Retreat) are expected to cover their own registration fee and travel costs. Fee discounts might be available for selected (PhD) students and early career scholars, with a particular priority given to scholars coming from Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries and Russia.
If you have the means to make a donation in support of participants who could not otherwise afford the fees, we would be deeply grateful for any level of donation. You can state your intention to make a donation in the application form or write to office@mindandlife-europe.org.
If you would like to be considered for financial support, please submit a written request in the application form with details of your financial situation (max. 300 words). Please note that MLE operates on a limited budget, and will only be able to provide support to selected recipients.
Testimonials
To hear more about participants’ experiences at previous ESRIs….
“It was a powerful experience that gave me strength to keep moving in a time of despair.”
– ESRI 2023 participant
“ESRI has helped me inhabit a more attentive way of being with others and with myself. I experienced how presence, trust, and care are not fixed qualities but living processes that arise when there is openness, self-regulation, and a willingness to stay with uncertainty.”
– ESRI 2025 PARTICIPANT
“ESRI is a unique opportunity… It draws together motivated, creative people who care about ideas, humanity, and one another. There is nothing like it!”
– ESRI 2024 PARTICIPANT
“I go home with a lot of new interests…and a lot of first-person experiences with other like-minded people who have enriched me both as a student and as an academic.”
– ESRI 2025 PARTICIPANT
“I felt a schism between my spiritual life and my work but when I found out about ESRI, it seemed like an incredible opportunity to blend both academic research with Buddhist principles and to meet individuals who are further along in their career who have similar values to myself, which is exciting and hard to come by.”
