Forschungsagenda
Was wir noch nicht wissen.
An agenda is a promise about honesty. These are the ten questions where the Mindful Diving Standard currently rests on reasoning rather than evidence, grouped by the horizon in which the Institute intends to answer them. Three are already being answered by instruments running inside the network. The Research Council retires a question only when a study answers it.
Die acht Forschungsbereiche — Physiologie, Psychologie, Lehrende, Ökologie, klinische Forschung, FP20-Validierung, Pädagogik sowie Politik und globale Skalierung — sind im Grundlagenpapier veröffentlicht. Hier werden sie als offene Forschungsfragen weitergeführt. Wie im Grundlagenpapier veröffentlicht →
Near horizon
2026–2027Questions the network can answer with instruments already running.
- Q01AktivTauchen & WohlbefindenHorizont 2026–2027
What is the dose?
Blue-space research shows restoration rises with contact, but nobody has described a dose-response curve for diving. How many dives, over how many weeks, before a change in perceived stress holds a month later?
Was es braucht
Repeated FP20 measurement across a dive season, minimum 300 divers, three climates. - Q02AktivSicherheit & PsycheHorizont 2026–2027
Does instructor wellbeing change student safety?
Pillar 3 assumes it does. The literature on diving is almost silent on the people who teach it: burnout, seasonal load, sleep and decision quality on the boat.
Was es braucht
Cohort of instructors across Founding Centers, wellbeing and incident–near-miss reporting paired. - Q03AktivSicherheit & PsycheHorizont 2026–2027
Can a wellbeing signal be caught before it becomes an incident?
Centers already log a green–amber–red check on each staff member before the day starts. The question is whether an amber, recorded early and acted on, precedes fewer near-misses than an amber recorded late — and whether the signal survives contact with a busy season.
Was es braucht
Two seasons of paired amber logs and near-miss reports across at least twenty centers, analysed blind.Being answered by the network now — the staff amber signal →
Middle horizon
2027–2029Questions that need designed studies and external partners.
- Q04In KonzeptionAtmung & PhysiologieHorizont 2027–2029
Which mechanism carries the effect — breath, buoyancy, or silence?
Slow continuous breathing, weightlessness and sensory reduction all plausibly drive the calm divers report. They have never been separated experimentally.
Was es braucht
Controlled comparison: confined-water sessions isolating each condition, HRV plus FP20. - Q05ÖffnenAchtsamkeit im WasserHorizont 2027–2029
Does the practice transfer to land?
«Beyond» is the fourth phase of the practice arc and the least evidenced. If presence trained underwater does not survive the drive home, the claim is a holiday effect.
Was es braucht
Twelve-month follow-up of MD-1 graduates against matched divers with no mindful training. - Q06ÖffnenOcean ConnectionHorizont 2027–2029
Does mindful attention underwater change what divers do above it?
Diving experience predicts pro-environmental attitude, but attitude is cheap. We want measured behaviour: contact with the reef, gear choices, local stewardship over two seasons.
Was es braucht
Behavioural observation at partner sites, paired with the Atlas practice notes. - Q07ÖffnenTauchen & WohlbefindenHorizont 2027–2029
Who does this not work for?
Almost every published sample is made of people who already dive and already liked it. The anxious first-timer, the diver returning after an incident and the person who finds the mask intolerable are absent from the literature — and they are the people a standard most needs to protect.
Was es braucht
Prospective cohort recruited at the point of first try-dive, including everyone who stops. - Q08ÖffnenWasser als NaturraumHorizont 2027–2029
How much of the effect is the water, and how much is the cold?
Cold-water immersion has its own literature and its own claimed effects. Diving research rarely reports temperature at all, so warm-reef and cold-quarry findings are pooled as if they were one exposure.
Was es braucht
Temperature-stratified analysis across the network, with thermal comfort recorded alongside FP20.
Far horizon
2029+Questions that need a field, not a study.
- Q09ÖffnenGrundlagenHorizont 2029+
Are we measuring the right thing?
Stress scales and mindfulness inventories were built on land, for populations sitting still. Whether they capture what happens to a person forty minutes into a dive is an open psychometric question, not a settled one.
Was es braucht
Validation programme for the FP20 in aquatic settings, with invariance testing across languages and cultures. - Q10ÖffnenTherapeutisches TauchenHorizont 2029+
Where is the line between practice and therapy?
Therapeutic diving programmes report reductions in trauma symptoms. Mindful Diving is not therapy and never will be. The Institute wants the boundary drawn by evidence, not by marketing.
Was es braucht
Joint protocol with dive medicine and clinical psychology partners; referral pathways defined first.
Eine Studie vorschlagen
Forschende, klinisch Tätige, Fachleute für Tauchmedizin und Studierende in weiterführenden Studiengängen sind willkommen. Sagen Sie uns, welcher Frage Sie nachgehen würden. Oder bringen Sie eine mit, die uns entgangen ist.