Centre

Key Innovations

• The world’s first research centre focused on the scientific study of consciousness through the lens of non-ordinary states

• The first MSc and PhD programmes dedicated to consciousness, meditation, and psychedelics

• Research that bridges neurobiology, psychology, phenomenology, and computational modelling

• A focus on underlying mechanisms, going beyond therapeutic or clinical applications

Overview

We are creating the world’s first cross-disciplinary centre dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of consciousness, with a focus on non-ordinary states, with a focus on meditation and psychedelics as powerful tools for exploring the nature of experience.

Based at University College London (UCL), the UCCR will be the first institution globally to support consciousness research involving non-ordinary states that extends beyond clinical and therapeutic applications. Instead, we focus on uncovering fundamental neurobiological, psychological, and phenomenological mechanisms, and integrating these with computational approaches to build a more complete science of consciousness.

Our findings will offer insight into how non-ordinary states shape conscious experience, and how they may enhance cognition, creativity, insight, and human development more broadly.

The UCCR will transform how research is done. By moving beyond the standard model—where individual researchers must secure their own grants for isolated projects—we will enable integrated, long-term, and ambitious research programmes that accelerate scientific discovery.

We will also offer the world’s first MSc and PhD degrees in Consciousness, Meditation, and Psychedelics. Following the Centre’s founding with seed funding, these pioneering programs will help ensure its long-term sustainability.

The MSc and PhD programmes will draw on UCL’s global leadership in psychology and neuroscience (ranked in the top 5 worldwide), and its reputation for innovative, ecological approaches to brain research. In line with UCL’s tradition of disruptive thinking, the UCCR will foster boundary-crossing research and teaching that redefines what’s possible in consciousness science.

Together, these innovations will place UCL—and the UK—at the forefront of global efforts to understand consciousness, establishing London as the premier destination for research, education, and innovation in this rapidly emerging field.

Our mission is to pioneer interdisciplinary research on consciousness, meditation, and psychedelics through a focus on neurobiological, phenomenological, and computational mechanisms, with a vision to become a world-leading institution recognised for innovation in consciousness science.

Research

Focus

• Consciousness-first approach. The UCCR uses psychedelics and meditation as tools to investigate consciousness, not just as therapeutic interventions.

• Integrative methodology. While valuing traditional methods, we move beyond disciplinary silos to embrace holistic, ecological, and multilevel approaches to conscious experience.

• Expansive research. Among other topics, we have a special interest in creativity and meaning, embodiment and environment, individual variation, and the self–world relationship.

Our Approach

The UCL Centre for Consciousness Research (UCCR) adopts a distinctive, forward-thinking approach to the scientific study of consciousness.

First, we take a consciousness-first approach: Non-ordinary states such as meditation and psychedelics are not simply therapeutic interventions or clinical tools. Instead, we see them as powerful methods for directly altering and illuminating the nature of conscious experience. While the Centre may contribute mechanistic insights relevant to clinical applications, its primary focus is on using these states to explore the foundations of cognition, creativity, insight, and human development.

Second, our integrative methodology moves beyond disciplinary silos. We value and incorporate traditional scientific methods but do not believe they alone are sufficient to explain subjective experience. Historically dominant reductionist approaches—though useful—have left major explanatory gaps in our understanding of consciousness. UCCR embraces a more holistic, ecological, and multilevel philosophy of science that draws on neuroscience, psychology, phenomenology, computational modelling, and beyond. We promote pluralism in both theory and method, and support interdisciplinary collaboration as essential to genuine progress in this field.

Third, we maintain an expansive research focus. Among other topics, the Centre is especially interested in four interrelated areas: (1) creativity and meaning-making, (2) embodiment and ecological context, (3) individual differences and neurophenomenology, and (4) the dynamic relationship between self and world. These domains reflect our commitment to studying consciousness in its richness and diversity, unconstrained by narrow disciplinary conventions

Topics