Our team—partners from around 30 universities—explores embodied, experiential meaning-making through shared practice in training workshops, reflecting and researching how these methods shape research and teaching. We have two main work groups that focus on 1) theoretical foundations of our methodologies of embodied critical thinking and 2)analysing data from our training session where we together explore, test and research our methods.
Work Package 1 (WP I) develops the theoretical grounding of embodied, critical, and creative thinking. Drawing especially on Eugene Gendlin, the group explores how thinking arises from lived, bodily engagement and how it can be cultivated through reflective and dialogical practices.
Together, the work connects theory and practice, demonstrating how embodied approaches can enrich higher education—especially in a time when thinking is increasingly mediated by AI, and human judgment, responsiveness, and imagination need to be sustained.
Work Package 2 (WP II) analyses the data from our training sessions. The aim is to understand the effects of embodied practices on thinking, learning, and research processes.
We also have focus areas or sub-groups of the project that have emerged throughout the research process where we put special emphasis on adjusting our methods toward specific fields.
Within our centre we are open to expand those sub-groups to other fields as we believe that integrating embodied critical thinking within all disciplines in higher education is crucial in times of AI, environmental degradation and polarization.
Teacher Education
Researchers within the MakeSense team working in teacher education have formed an international network to explore how embodied thinking and understanding can be integrated into teacher education programs. The network is open to those interested in developing practices of embodiment and experiential learning in educational contexts.
Our aim is to support educators in engaging embodied critical thinking as a resource for future-oriented education—strengthening human thinking, judgment, creativity, and response-ability in an age of AI.
Contact person: Kristín Valsdóttir
e-mail: kristin@lhi.i
Artistic research and arts education:
The team members of MakeSense that work within the field of art and arts education have formed an international network of artists and arts educators that are interested in exploring the intersection of embodied, experiential and mindful research methods with an artistic approach to research and learning. The network is open for those who are interested in exploring this intersection and are already working within arts or arts-based approaches in their research and teaching.
Contact person: Gunndís Ýr Finnbogadóttir
e-mail: gunndis@lhi.is
Philosophy education:
The MakeSense Philosophy Education Community (PEC)
Contact person: Sigríður Þorgerisdóttir
e-mail: sigrthor@hi.is
Business education:
The MakeSense Business Education Community (BEC) brings together business educators worldwide who integrate embodied critical thinking into their teaching and research. It offers a platform for sharing ideas, pedagogies, and experiences. Using methods such as Focusing and Thinking at the Edge, we explore how business education can engage more deeply within societal and environmental contexts. Our aim is to create spaces and workshops where educators and students develop grounded, reflective understanding and a sense of response-ability in shaping he role of business in society.
Contact person: Lovísa Eiríksdóttir
e-mail: lovisaeiriksdottir@hi.is
Thinking with Gendlin:
Eugene Gendlin has done pioneering work in explicating the manifold functions of embodied experiential meaning in processes of thinking and formulating (Experience and the Creation of Meaning, 1962). His major work traces the roots of meaning to the more-than-human world, showing how language has emerged from body–environment interaction while simultaneously reshaping the world (A Process Model, 2017). In parallel, Gendlin and his team have developed novel philosophical and creative practices of thinking and formulating that teach us how to deliberately access the richness of felt, pre-conceptual meaning in order to open up conceptual frameworks. This combination of sophisticated theory and innovative research practice is a central source of inspiration for the Freedom to Make Sense project. We therefore provide a platform to consolidate international Gendlin research and to connect Gendlian approaches with other methods and schools of thought, fostering embodiment, experiential meaning-making, and a leap into novel research and learning practices.
Contact person: Donata Schoeller
e-mail: donata@hi.is