Magic Institute for Mind & Behaviour exists to understand how people think and act — and to share what it learns, openly, with the world.
We study the human mind as it actually works — noisy, social, and embodied — across neuroscience, cognition, and behaviour. We stay small and independent on purpose, so we can take on the slow, careful, cumulative questions that don't fit a grant cycle. Our findings belong to everyone.
We've stayed deliberately small so researchers can collaborate closely and pursue questions that take years, not quarters.
Pre-registration, open data, and shared code are the norm, not the exception. If it can be public, it is.
We invest in rigorous, reproducible methods — and we'd rather report a careful null than a flashy artifact.
We do basic science, but with an eye to the world: education, health, policy, and how people live together.
Three psychologists and a neuroscientist establish the Institute as an independent home for basic research on the mind.
A shared 3T MRI facility opens, anchoring the Institute's cognitive neuroscience work.
The Institute adopts pre-registration and open data as policy for all published work.
A computational modelling group launches, releasing the first Open Cognitive Models library.
Nearly thirty years on — small, independent, and open, with researchers from 19 countries.
We welcome collaborators, visiting scholars, journalists, and the curious public. Our seminars are open, and our door usually is too.
New papers, upcoming talks, and the occasional argument worth having — once a month, in plain language.