Celebrating creativity that meets real needs

An Awards Scheme from the Mindfulness Initiative

and Hart Knowe Trust

Innovations in Mindfulness is an awards scheme that celebrates the important creative work being done to make mindfulness training more effective, diverse, inclusive, and beneficial. It was run for the first time in 2022, and the Mindfulness Initiative and the Hart Knowe Trust were thrilled to receive a wide range of applications, in particular from innovators with early-stage initiatives, and those from underrepresented communities.

The winner, runner-up, and outstanding nominees from the 2022 awards have been announced; you can read more about them here. 

Why does mindfulness need innovation?

Mindfulness is an inherent human capacity that we all have, but cultivating and refining this capacity requires training, and these efforts are necessarily a product of the times we live in.

As culture and technology evolves, so must the ways in which mindfulness is shared and practiced to meet the needs of people. If not, everyday people miss out.

This is why this innovation awards programme has been created - to celebrate the efforts being made in making mindfulness practices more accessible, diverse and effective. 

In 2019 the Mindfulness Initiative published a Fieldbook to support innovation in this space. This Awards scheme has been developed in response to the widespread interest and curiosity that the Fieldbook has sparked.

“The Innovation Fieldbook identified the challenges we face if we are to make the benefits of mindfulness more accessible without compromising the integrity of the approaches that have brought us to where we are now. In my experience innovation can be a pathway for transforming positive aspirations into compassion in action.”

Vin Harris, Co-founder, Hart Knowe Trust

What is the purpose of the awards?

• Celebrate inspiring people and creative ideas in mindfulness
• Support innovators in succeeding in their initiatives
• Build a mutually supportive community of innovators

Who’s behind the awards? 

This award scheme is a collaboration between two organisations that believe in the importance of innovation in the field of mindfulness. 

Mindfulness Initiative

The Mindfulness Initiative bridges contemplative practice and public policy, championing the inner dimension of social change. In 2019 we published the Fieldbook for Mindfulness Innovators, which has since been supporting innovators globally in developing their projects. 

Hart Knowe Trust

The main purpose of the charity is the advancement of education;  providing opportunities for training so that the development of human potential will improve the quality of individuals’ own lives and enable them to share the value of what they have learnt.

Who can apply?

Please note that the 2022 awards are closed. Updates regarding future rounds will be shared here.

If you and your innovation are based in the UK, you’re welcome to apply. (If you’re not - sorry, but we do hope to expand to other geographies in the future.)

These awards are open for all, and we warmly welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds. You are particularly encouraged to apply if you are from an underrepresented community, or your innovation positively impacts a community that has had less access than others to the benefits of mindfulness-based programmes.

We want to support and encourage individuals and early-stage initiatives, because we believe they have the potential to make a major contribution in diversifying the field of mindfulness. 

What are we looking for?

We have six core criteria. We are looking for innovators, and innovations that demonstrate:

• Solutions to a real problem
• Creativity and risk-taking
• Diversity, inclusion and accessibility 
• Testing and adapting as you go along
• Collaboration and learning from each other
• Sustainability and impact over time

You can find out more about what these six criteria mean through the Q&A session held on 12 April 2022:

Winner receives: 

• £4,000 to spend on the development of their project
• Short film, social-media friendly, to celebrate what’s exciting 
• Showcase on the Mindfulness Initiative website and newsletter
• Constructive feedback and ideas from judging panel

Runner-up receives:

• £2000 to spend on the development of their project
• Short film, social media friendly, to celebrate what’s exciting 
• Showcase on the Mindfulness Initiative website and newsletter 
• Constructive feedback and ideas from judging panel

Outstanding Nominees receive:

• Feature on the Mindfulness Initiative website and newsletter 
• Constructive feedback and ideas from judging panel

Helpful resource:

Fieldbook for Mindfulness Innovators

Our heartfelt thanks to the judges of the 2022 awards:

Richard Burnett

Richard Burnett is co-founder of Mindfulness in Schools Project. He has taught mindfulness to well over a thousand adolescents in the past 15 years - in classrooms, science labs, libraries, theatres, carparks and fields, and at virtually every time of day. He co-wrote the highly-acclaimed 10 week mindfulness course, .b (pronounced dot-b) designed to engage adolescents in the classroom and his TEDx talk helped define the landscape of mindfulness in education. Richard is a teacher at Tonbridge School, the first school in the UK to put mindfulness on the curriculum, an event covered by press, TV and radio in early 2010. He was an expert witness at the All Party Parliamentary Group that led to Mindful Nation UK and taught mindfulness to MPs and Peers from 2016 to 2021.

Vidyamala Burch

Vidyamala Burch is a mindfulness and compassion teacher, author, disability spokesperson and Co-founder of the leading mindfulness organisation Breathworks. Vidyamala began teaching her mindfulness approach for managing pain and illness following her own personal experience living with health challenges. At age 17, she sustained spinal injuries that required multiple surgeries and left her with partial paraplegia and chronic pain. She began to explore mindfulness and meditation as a way to manage her pain and found
the results to be life changing and transformative. In 2001, she developed the world’s first Mindfulness-based Pain Management (MBPM) programme and in 2004 went on to found the Breathworks organisation with friends and fellow meditation teachers Sona Fricker and Gary Hennessey. Today, Breathworks has taught over 100,000 people their mindfulness-approach to coping with pain, illness and stress. 

Rohan Gunatillake

Rohan Gunatillake is head of product at the NDS, a unit within NHS Scotland, making technology for clinicians, care workers and citizens. Prior to that he ran Mindfulness Everywhere, where he was the creator of Kara, Sleepfulness, Designing Mindfulness and the best-selling hit app Buddhify. Rohan's first book is called Modern Mindfulness. Based in Glasgow, Rohan was a trustee of the British Council for six years and was named by Wired magazine in their Smart List of 50 people who will change the world. Rohan is the host of Meditative Story.

Cathy-Mae Karelse

Dr. Cath-Mae Karelse has over 20+ years expertise in social transformation and systems change and is a leader in diversity and belonging. Working as a transformation architect, coach, facilitator, researcher and policy writer, she works closely with individuals and organisations to forge strategic visions that bridge their current realities with their potential to lead in new worldmaking. Through this partnership she uncovers resistance and blind spots as well as desires to change and turns this deep dive into insights and prospects for enduring and evolving transformation.

Menka Sanghvi

Menka Sanghvi is an experienced researcher and facilitator specialising in mindfulness, design strategy, and planetary thinking. She has worked with diverse groups around the world - from refugees and farmers to corporate leaders and musicians. Menka is the lead author of the Fieldbook for Mindfulness Innovators.  She is currently developing a learning platform for developing intentional digital habits at Mind Over Tech. Her popular newsletter Just Looking explores themes of mindfulness, perception and photography. She has a masters degree in leadership for sustainable development from Forum for the Future, and a bachelors degree in physics and philosophy from Cambridge University. 

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