Over the past decade Elizabeth R. Koch has founded and co-founded organizations in the fields of publishing, media, neuroscience, and transformational experiences, all under the banner of Unlikely Collaborators. She is building a movement to resolve conflict through self-investigation and self-understanding, driven through her curriculum and facilitation of Perception Box workshops; investments in the medicinal properties of psychedelics; publishing books; making movies; founding a neuroscience research foundation; and collaborating with non-profits, universities, and organizations that study the brain, bias, emotions, reality, and consciousness. The organizations she founded and co-founded include both commercial and philanthropic endeavors, including Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, a scientific research foundation that seeks to understand and measure the Perception Box, and Catapult, an award-winning publishing company that celebrates storytelling that expands our ability to see one another and honor every life experience. All of Elizabeth R. Koch’s companies and activities share the same goal of bringing people’s awareness of their Perception Box, a powerful metaphor that was created by her.

“We all live inside an invisible but ever-present mental box—a Perception Box,” she explains. “Built from the material of your beliefs, the Perception Box has the power to distort your reality and leave you feeling isolated, disconnected, and fearful. Our goal with this RFP is to support pioneering work from reputable and innovative scientists and researchers that offer invaluable insights and tools, guiding us to navigate and better understand our Perception Box, in contracted and expanded states, and see the world and other people with a wider lens.”

Eleven neuroscientific research projects related to “The Science of Perception Box” are being funded by the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in a first round of funding that took place earlier this year. The projects include a wide-range of empirical investigations studying the effects of psychedelics, breathwork, mindfulness, heated yoga, mindfulness interventions for treating chronic pain and, in a very relevant study for our current times, reducing bias by building compassionate relationships among police and Black community members. The studies, which will be conducted by researchers from many corners of the world including the United States, Israel, Germany, Austria, and Taiwan, were selected from more than two hundred applications during an open call for proposals, which kicked off in October 2022. Details on the first group of projects researching “The Science of Perception Box” can be found here.

“Our first RFP generated a tremendous response from the global scientific community both in quantity and quality,” said Christof Koch. “We are very fortunate to continue to fund more rigorous, empirical, statistically valid, and sound neuroscientific research. Our grant funds are being used by recipients to support research to develop relevant techniques and interventions to expand the walls of people’s Perception Box, to measure the effectiveness of such techniques and interventions for neurotypicals and/or clinically defined populations and to track their basis in the brain using appropriate tools.”

Grants can only be awarded to recognized Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) medical schools, colleges, universities, or not-for-profit research organizations and, to the extent permissible pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, to similar organizations located within or outside the United States. The Principal Investigator should be a clinical, applied, or basic science researcher with a MD, PhD, or an equivalent degree. The research should be focused on the discovery or development of tools and interventions to help expand the walls of people’s Perception Box, and to measure and track the effects of these tools and interventions on the minds, behaviors, and brains of subjects. Please also see the Detailed Criteria section.

To help applicants through the process, we will host webinars at key stages. Webinars will be recorded to accommodate applicants from different time zones, with the first one taking place on September 11.

About Tiny Blue Dot Foundation
Tiny Blue Dot Foundation strives to help people understand that they live in their own unique Perception Box whose walls can be expanded to minimize suffering, increase acceptance of self and others, and view trauma/other challenges as opportunities for growth. Our mission is to develop Perception Box modification techniques that are safe, effective, reliable, measurable, widely accessible, and easy to use.

SOURCE Tiny Blue Dot Foundation