9th to 10th November - 47th SPR International Annual Conference 2024

47^th SPR INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024

Celebrating 142 years of the SPR

This year's conference will be held at Derby Mickleover Hotel, Etwall Rd, Mickleover, Derby DE3 0XX, United Kingdom

Saturday 9th November and Sunday 10th November 2024 with welcome drinks and dinner on Friday 8^th November.

The provisional conference programme can be viewed HERE; it will also be available from the SPR office.

The Book of Abstracts can be viewed HERE.

Please note that the conference schedule is 9.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on Saturday 9th and 9.00 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Sunday 10th November. Accommodation and all meals will be available.

The Derby Mickleover Hotel offers a central base for exploring attractions around the city and the beautiful Peak District National Park. With a spa and wellness facility, including an indoor swimming pool, the hotel has free on-site car parking and is a 15-minute taxi ride from Derby city centre, a 5-minute drive from the A50 and a 25-minute drive from the M1 and East Midland Airport. Birmingham International Airport is 1 hour away by car. Uber and Bolt operate in Derby.

All rooms have modern décor and free Wi-Fi. Each room has a private bathroom with a hairdryer, while some rooms have a balcony.

Note that booking separate nights' accommodation, with or without Dinner, is also possible. For instance, you may wish to add Thursday or Sunday night or add accommodation to a Day Delegate booking for just one day of the conference. Please contact me at [email protected] if you wish to book this.

Note from the Programme Chair

Welcome to the 47^th Annual International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research. This year we are based in the East Midlands, at the Derby Mickelover Hotel. We hope you find it comfortable and relaxing, with all the facilities you require under one roof. It seems some time ago now that we would regularly use universities for conferences, and perhaps we will return to some in the future. However, hotels with conferences facilities bring immediate convenience and less walking from halls of residence to the lecture rooms for presentations. This year, we are also very close to the University of Derby (UOD); colleagues from the parapsychology team there are attending.  One of the invited speakers and our guest after-dinner speaker are also from the UOD. At the last count, there are more than a dozen UK universities offering taught modules of parapsychology within degree programmes, which bodes well for the SPR.

We had more abstract submissions than we could fit in this year. Alongside the invited speakers and, of course, a guest after-dinner speaker, narrowing down such abstracts and the work people have put into preparing them is no easy task, when even in a strict packed schedule we can only accept two-thirds of them in the time available. We have invited those not included in the programme to share a poster to discuss with all the delegates face-to-face at the event. We will cover a wide range of topics from history and legacy to the latest laboratory research, experiences surrounding death, and much more. We encourage all contributors to take feedback from their talks and consider writing for the SPR Journal and/or the Magazine and share the data and ideas much further to our worldwide membership.

I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Conference Programme Committee for their useful feedback on the abstracts submitted, which helped in the selection process. Thanks also, to our current president, Prof. Adrian Parker, for exploring invited speakers. And to our Secretary, Peter Johnson – for all his work on this event. He once again has been the backbone of helping make the conference possible and piecing together the fine details. Everyone’s hard work has been with the aim of making sure you get access to the latest research and ideas, and above all, have an enjoyable and memorable time at the SPR conference.

I look forward to welcoming you all, both familiar and new faces!

Dr Cal Cooper, Programme Chair