Related Research Organizations

The Appreciative Inquiry Commons Web site (hosted by Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management) is devoted to the fullest sharing of academic resources and practical tools on Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and the rapidly growing discipline of positive change. AI assumes that every living system has many untapped, rich and inspiring accounts of the positive. In AI, the arduous task of intervention gives way to the speed of imagination and innovation; instead of negation, criticism and spiraling diagnosis, there is discovery, dream and design. Link the energy of this core directly to any change agenda and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.

Project Compassion (The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education) is striving to create a community of scholars and researchers, including neuroscientists, psychologists, neuroeconomists and contemplative scholars. Drawing from such varied disciplines - from etiological approaches that look at evolutionary roots to the neuroscientific study of the brain mechanisms, and from philosophical and contemplative perspectives to cognitive and social psychology as well as neuroeconomics - Project Compassion is working to gain a deep understanding of compassion and its associated human behaviors in all its richness.

The Centre for Confidence and Well-Being’s mission is to help bring about a transformation in Scottish culture so that it supports more positive attitudes, confidence, individuality, creativity and innovation, recognition of success, and well-being. The Centre’s work focuses on research and interventions on confidence and well-being and related attitudes such as optimism, resilience and emotional intelligence.

We are a research Center dedicated to creating a world in which healthy qualities of mind flourish. The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, through hard-nosed basic and translational scientific research, will help to pave the way toward more widespread incorporation of methods and practices to nourish positive qualities of mind throughout society.

The Center for Neuroeconomics Studies (CNS) investigates the neurophysiology of economic decisions. Its researchers draws on economic theory, experimental economics, neuroscience, endocrinology, and psychology to develop a comprehensive understanding of human decisions.

The CompassionLab is a group of organizational researchers who strive to create a new vision of organizations as sites for the development and expression of compassion. Our focus is on the expression of compassion in work and in the workplace, including emphasis on roles, routines, practices, relationships, teams, and structures that impact the experience of compassion in organizations. We are part of a broader community of scholars who are dedicated to developing a perspective on organizations as sites for human growth and the development of human strengths.

Chartered in August 2009, the Conscious Capitalism Institute (CCI) has been founded to advance the understanding and implementation of the principles of Conscious Capitalism in all forms of business and social organizations. The CCI is designed to be the primary knowledge hub for the conscious capitalism movement, focused on original research and best practices in high performance organizational leadership. It represents a unique collaborative effort among major corporations, research faculty at prominent business schools around the world, and thought leaders from leading consulting organizations and elsewhere.

The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT is dedicated to inquiry, to dialogue, and to the creation of programs that affect the ethical and humane dimensions of life. This nonpartisan center is a collaborative think tank focused on the development of interdisciplinary research and programs in various fields of knowledge from science and technology, to education and international relations. The Center is founded to honor the vision of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and his call for a holistic education that includes the development of human and global ethics. It will emphasize responsibility as well as examine meaningfulness and moral purpose between individuals, organizations, and societies.

The Arete Initiative at The University of Chicago has launched a $2 million research program on the nature and benefits of wisdom. The Wisdom Research Network website is an international networking utility that enables scholars and scientists from all academic disciplines to exchange ideas and engage in richer conversations through online discussion forums. Such interactions aim to initiate the level of interdisciplinary collaboration required of rigorous, scientific investigations on the subject of wisdom. Wisdom-related news and recent publications are posted regularly to the site, along with updates on the progress of the current Defining Wisdom grant competition.

The Greater Good Science Center is an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the scientific understanding of happy and compassionate individuals, strong social bonds, and altruistic behavior. By studying individuals and their relationships, we aim to promote well-being in society as a whole.

The Growth Initiative is an ongoing research program that aims to better understand the conditions under which people can experience positive behavioral changes after going through highly stressful adverse events.

HeartMath LLC aims to improve people's performance and well-being at work through the development of programs that help people cope with the chaos of modern life. Its work is focused on understanding connections between emotions, rhythms of the heart and brain function. HeartMath is offering free public services to help America in this time of crisis. The free services are listed on their homepage. In addition, they also are offering a special program for organizations called "Easing the Pain."

Humanet is a research based and implementation oriented network of humanistically oriented researchers and practitioners. We focus on creating a “life-serving” economy that centers around human needs and not “system needs”. In the spirit of POS, we promote research and implementation frameworks that enable humans to thrive in organizations and society.

The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love is an independent nonprofit entity currently located at the School of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. It seeks to encourage, support and disseminate the highest level of scientific research on unlimited love in all of its expressions to enhance understanding of human altruistic capacities. The Institute also seeks to provide a forum that both enhances scientific progress and increases dialogue across disciplines (i.e., between science, the humanities and religious thought), and provide a public forum for the consideration of alternatives to images of human nature that highlight unloving tendencies such as selfishness, hatred and violence.

The National Peace Academy will be an educational institution that in its design, policies, and structure “draws forth” principles and policies of peace. The National Peace Academy will embody the best of what is and, at the same time, provide a structure and program that encourages innovation and creativity in theory, processes, and practice for peace and conflict resolution.

The mission of the Optentia Research Programme is to develop and organise knowledge for the optimal expression of individual, social and institutional potential in Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) from the perspective of positive social science. The research programme utilises the inputs from various disciplines in the social sciences, including Psychology, Industrial/Organisational Psychology, Educational Psychology, Sociology, Employment Relations, and Social Work.

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The Positive Psychology Center promotes research, training, education, and the dissemination of Positive Psychology. A variety of resources from the Center are also available at www.authentichappiness.org.

Relational coordination is a mutually reinforcing process of communicating and relating for the purpose of task integration, and is particularly important for achieving desirable performance outcomes under conditions of task interdependence, uncertainty and time-constraints. The mission of the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative is to facilitate the use of relational coordination – and related concepts – by researchers and practitioners who seek to improve the performance of organizations, and outcomes for all their stakeholders.

Based at the University of Cambridge, this inter-disciplinary institute is dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of well-being and applying this new knowledge to helping people and institutions develop their full potential.