The AnyMinds Initiative brings together scientists and scholars interested in one of the most profound questions in science: how consciousness can be understood through the study of many kinds of minds.

The initiative was created to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration among researchers working in behavioral biology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and related disciplines. Its goal is to create a space where different approaches to the study of consciousness can interact and gradually contribute to a deeper scientific understanding of subjective experience.

The origins of the AnyMinds Initiative lie in discussions with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the scientific and ethical implications of consciousness in the animal world.

These discussions led to the organization of the first Animal Consciousness Conference, held in Dharamsala in 2023. The meeting brought together Buddhist scholars and researchers from several disciplines to explore the foundations of the question of animal consciousness, its distribution in nature, and how it might be investigated empirically.

From the beginning, the goal was not simply to debate philosophical questions but to encourage the development of scientific approaches capable of advancing our understanding of consciousness beyond the human mind.

The central activity of the AnyMinds Initiative is the Animal Consciousness Conferences (ACC) — a series of small interdisciplinary meetings designed to promote sustained dialogue and collaborative exploration of consciousness across different kinds of minds.

Unlike traditional academic conferences, the ACC meetings are organized as intensive workshops combining short presentations with extended discussions in small working groups. This format encourages deep interaction between participants and allows the meetings to focus on conceptual clarification and the development of new research ideas.

Since the first meeting in Dharamsala, the conference series has continued with gatherings in Kathmandu (2024) and the Galápagos Islands (2025), each exploring different aspects of the scientific study of non-human consciousness.

As discussions within the ACC meetings evolved, participants increasingly recognized the need for a more systematic research framework capable of guiding empirical work on consciousness across species.

One important step in this direction was the development of the Kathmandu List of Consciousness Tests (C-Tests) — a set of proposed experimental paradigms aimed at investigating conscious processes in animals.

These developments gradually revealed the possibility of something more ambitious: the creation of a comparative research framework capable of advancing the scientific understanding of consciousness itself.

This realization has led to the emergence of the Comparative Consciousness Program, a new phase of the AnyMinds Project aimed at transforming the insights of the ACC meetings into a structured research agenda.

Through the conferences and related activities, the AnyMinds Initiative is helping to form an international community of scientists and scholars interested in advancing the scientific study of consciousness across many kinds of minds.

Through the conferences and related activities, the AnyMinds Initiative is helping to form an international community of scientists and scholars interested in advancing the scientific study of consciousness across many kinds of minds.