EAGER Germination: Cultivating Creativity and Innovation in Engineering Research through Mindfulness Training

威斯康星大学(UW)麦迪逊分校在Susan C.Hagness教授的指导下，提出了一个项目，旨在为工程学研究生开发和评估一个全新的学习框架，旨在培养一种高度创造性、创新性和专注于重大挑战的研究文化。该框架基于正念训练：了解大脑、情感风格，以及如何通过冥想和其他冥想练习来改变它们。向工科研究生介绍冥想练习的基本原理源于最近的研究表明，正念冥想可以改善洞察力问题的解决，降低认知僵化，积极影响创造力结果，以及增加同理心和同情心。基本的假设是，通过正念训练培养创造力、创新、智力冒险、利他主义和整体幸福感，将共同提高研究生构思和进行变革性研究的技能，并将激励他们通过他们所追求的研究问题来应对社会挑战。保守的神经科学研究表明，大脑可塑性可以通过正念训练来开发，对大脑功能以及身体和情感健康产生可测量的影响。该项目代表了对正念在培养大脑属性方面的潜在作用的全新探索，这些属性对于构思和进行具有社会影响的变革性研究至关重要。该项目将为培养工程学研究生提供可扩展和可调整的课程，提供适合于评估创新能力、情感风格和幸福感的综合评估工具，并记录拟议学习框架在提高研究生进行以社会为中心的变革研究的能力和兴趣方面的有效性。

The University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, under the direction of Prof. Susan C. Hagness is proposing a project to develop and evaluate a radically new learning framework for engineering graduate students that is intended to cultivate a highly creative, innovative, and grand-challenge-focused research culture. The framework is based on mindfulness training: understanding the brain, emotional styles, and how they can be modified through meditation and other contemplative practices. The rationale for introducing engineering graduate students to contemplative practices stems from recent studies suggesting that mindfulness meditation improves insight problem solving, reduces cognitive rigidity, and positively impacts creativity outcomes, as well as increasing empathy and compassion. The underlying hypothesis is that cultivating creativity, innovation, intellectual risk-taking, altruism, and overall well-being "through mindfulness training" will collectively enhance graduate students' skills to conceive and conduct transformative research, and will motivate them to address societal challenges through the research problems they pursue.Contemplative neuroscience research studies have demonstrated that brain plasticity can be exploited via mindfulness training to produce measurable effects on brain function, and physical and emotional well-being. The project represents an entirely new exploration of the potential role of mindfulness in cultivating attributes in the brain that are essential to conceiving and conducting transformative research with societal impact. The project will yield a scalable and adaptable curriculum for training engineering graduate students, integrated assessment tools suitable for evaluating creative capacity, emotional styles, and well-being, and documentation of the effectiveness of the proposed learning framework in enhancing graduate student ability and interest to conduct societally-focused transformative research.