“The way forward is networking, willingness, and openness to engage and collaborate.” (Professor Rebecca Crane)
Based in Bangor University, North Wales, the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice has grown from a local initiative into a hub of international learning and community. Its vision is simple but profound: to cultivate mindfulness to alleviate ill health, enhance wellbeing and help people flourish.
In its early years, the Centre was rooted firmly in the UK, bringing mindfulness into health and public services, particularly the NHS. The work was anchored into the evidence-based programmes Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Gradually the work expanded beyond clinical practice with trainees coming from a range of backgrounds including corporate settings, the police, education, social services and other public bodies. Since 2017, especially with the expansion of online learning during Covid, its reach has become increasingly global.
That widening circle mirrors a wider shift in the mindfulness field. What began largely in clinical settings is now relevant to healthcare, education, workplaces, community life and personal development. Today, the Centre welcomes people who want to cultivate mindfulness for their own wellbeing and for the benefit of those they live and work alongside.
Professor Rebecca Crane’s mindfulness journey began long before mindfulness entered mainstream health and education. Drawn to meditation in her late teens, she attended an introductory Buddhist weekend, later travelled in India for nine months, and then spent some months practising at a temple in Thailand, encountering teachings that shaped her values and practice. After training as an occupational therapist in Oxford, she continued to deepen her meditation through contact with a Buddhist monk and retreats.
By the mid-1990s, mindfulness was both a personal practice and an emerging professional interest. Professor Mark Williams at Bangor University was recruiting participants for research into what became MBCT, drawing on people from Rebecca’s community mental health team in North Wales. The Bangor trial investigated MBCT as a relapse prevention approach for people vulnerable to recurrent depression, bridging ancient contemplative practice and contemporary cognitive science.
For Rebecca, MBCT’s impact was striking. She saw changes over eight weeks that felt unlike anything she had previously witnessed in her work in mental health services. When the first paper from the original trial was published in 2000, showing a significant reduction in relapse rates for people with clinical depression, it marked a seminal moment for the field. Rebecca was appointed as the founding director of the Centre just before Mark Williams left Bangor to take up a new role at Oxford University.
Building evidence, training teachers and shaping standards
The Centre was established with a practical and ambitious purpose: to bring mindfulness into the NHS in a grounded, rigorous and useful way. Evidence was beginning to show mindfulness-based approaches could help, but key questions remained. How should programmes be taught? How could teachers be trained well? How could quality be recognised? How could mindfulness be embedded in real services?
These questions led the Centre into a distinctive blend of research, practice and training. Rebecca engaged with researchers worldwide, collaborated internationally on papers, and led the development of Mindfulness-Based Interventions: Teaching Assessment Criteria, which has become influential internationally. The centre’s work has always been empirical and relational: gathering evidence, learning from experience and building communities of practice.
Rebecca also initiated early conversations with Breathworks and colleagues in Scotland, Oxford and Exeter that led to the creation of the UK Network for mindfulness-based teachers which later became the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches (BAMBA), helping create good practice guidelines and shared standards for mindfulness teacher training. This collaborative spirit is central to the Centre’s identity: working together to protect the integrity of mindfulness teaching as it expands.
The first master’s students often came from health backgrounds, but over time participants arrived from many professional and personal contexts. Teacher training became increasingly UK-wide and international and reached civic life in Wales. Bangor University was awarded the tender to deliver mindfulness training for the Senedd, with assembly members and staff engaging with mindfulness in relation to health, education and public service. This reflects one of the Centre’s wider hopes: that mindfulness can support more humane, reflective and compassionate systems.
At its heart, the work remains relational. Mindfulness is not simply an individual technique; it is a way of cultivating awareness, kindness and steadiness that can ripple into teams, services, families and communities. The Centre nurtures mindful communities through trainees, research collaborations, workplace culture and ongoing partnerships across Wales, the UK and beyond.
Today, the Centre continues to bring together ancient wisdom, modern psychology and practical professional training. Its influence is visible in research, teacher development, standards, public service and in the many people who take mindfulness into their lives and communities. From Bangor, the work travels outward, carried by networks committed to practising, teaching and living mindfulness with care.
Contact Details:
Website: Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice
Facebook: Centre for mindfulness https://www.facebook.com/centreformindfulness
Course details:
Contemplative Psychology: Mindfulness and Compassion | Bangor University
YouTube mindfulness channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mWpdyKn54&list=PLtgySf_s3NlOfMvH5DFcG7VD5YJVptR8w
Why choose Bangor? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pupR9tzVkTU&list=PLtgySf_s3NlOfMvH5DFcG7VD5YJVptR8w&index=11