The Institute for Spirituality and Health (IES) is a Brazilian center for research, education, and innovation dedicated to integrating spirituality, health, bioethics, and compassionate care.
Through scientific research, professional training, and national and international collaborations, IES seeks to advance care practices that recognize the complexity of human suffering and promote presence, meaning, compassion, and whole-person health.
This English page is being developed as part of IES’s internationalization process and offers an initial overview for international researchers, institutions, and partners.
To promote research, education, and innovation at the intersection of spirituality, health, bioethics, and compassionate care, contributing to more humane, evidence-informed, and socially relevant care practices.
To be recognized as an international reference center for research, education, and innovation at the intersection of spirituality, health, bioethics, and compassionate care, contributing to the transformation of care practices in Brazil and worldwide.
IES investigates spirituality as a human dimension related to meaning, connection, suffering, care, and health. Its work supports practices that are attentive to the existential, spiritual, ethical, and relational dimensions of human experience.
Compassion is a strategic area for IES. The Institute is developing research, education, and knowledge translation initiatives focused on compassionate care in health contexts, with attention to professional training, evidence-informed practice, and international collaboration.
IES approaches care as an ethical and relational practice. Its work connects bioethics, public theology, palliative care, spiritual care, and health professions education in order to strengthen more humane and responsible care practices.
IES develops educational initiatives for health professionals, researchers, students, spiritual care providers, and institutions interested in integrating spirituality, compassion, and ethical reflection into care.
IES is strengthening international collaborations with researchers and institutions committed to spirituality, health, bioethics, and compassionate care.
A key collaboration involves the Compassion Research Lab Inc. in Canada. This collaboration strengthens IES’s strategic axis of research, education, and innovation in compassion. It involves scientific research, knowledge translation, the development of educational programs, and the implementation of training initiatives focused on compassionate care in health.
Under the scientific reference of Prof. Dr. Shane Sinclair, this network connects IES to international initiatives related to the EnACT Program, the Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ), the SCQ-HCPCSA, and the development of evidence-informed educational practices for health professionals.
IES believes that contemporary health challenges require interdisciplinary, interinstitutional, and international cooperation.
For this reason, it develops projects in collaboration with universities, research centers, civil society organizations, and funding agencies in Brazil and abroad.
These networks strengthen scientific production, researcher training, health innovation, and the implementation of evidence-informed practices guided by an integral, ethical, and compassionate understanding of care.
This English section is an initial institutional landing page. Additional pages on research areas, strategic collaborations, publications, impact, and the Compassion axis are being developed.
For contact and collaboration inquiries, please visit the contact page.