THE SOCIETY for Psychical Research supports research projects undertaken by individuals and by postgraduate students at universities.
Two research areas are covered. One seeks to produce evidence of – and to understand the nature and causes of – psi: the anomalous mental phenomena known individually as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition (also called ‘extra-sensory perception’ or ESP), and psychokinesis (PK).
This is done either by surveys and analyses of spontaneous experiences, for instance of precognitive dreams, apparitions and out-of-body episodes, investigation of gifted psychics, and controlled statistical experiments.
Other research seeks to know whether humans survive bodily death, by evaluating apparent evidence of this: for instance in mediumship, apparitions of the dead and reincarnation studies.
The Society runs two funds for these separate purposes.
General Psi Research
A Research Fund supports research in any recognised area of psychical research not directly related to survival.
Applications for grants (normally up to £7,000) are considered annually by the Research Grants Committee. Click here for an application form to complete and email it to [email protected] or just mail it to Research Grants Committee, SPR, 1 Vernon Mews, London W14 0RL To download a blank form, click here, complete it, scan it and return it by email to [email protected]. Applications by email should be sent to [email protected]. The deadline for each year is 1st June. You will need to include on your application form:
- a description of the proposed research, including its rationale and hypotheses/anticipated outcomes (max 1500 words)
- a general description of the methodology
- costing, itemising specific elements
- full details about any other sources of funding for the project and indicate which aspects this will cover.
Please also supply
- a short CV
- names of two referees
Awards are limited to one project per year. A report of the completed research must be received by the Chairperson of the Research Grants Committee before new projects can be considered.
Survival Research
The Yew-Kwang Ng (黄有光) Fund for Survival Research supports scientific research into the fundamental question of whether some aspect of consciousness or personality survives the death of the body and is a restricted fund. Various donors have contributed to this fund, including Henry Burton Tate, of sugar manufacturing fame, who had a strong interest in survival and whose will set the terms for the fund. In 2025 the SPR renamed the fund to honour a new benefactor to the SPR and to its programme of survival research: Professor Yew-Kwang Ng (黄有光), a distinguished academic at Monash University, Australia, with an interest in survival and who has published on the topic, Do We Survive Our Biological Death?: A Rational Examination. [External link to Amazon.co.uk]
The fund supports projects that
- aim to generate new evidence for survival
- collate, analyse, and/or disseminate relevant evidence
- draw on such evidence for theory development
- generate theoretical frameworks for relevant theory building.
Examples of relevant research are projects that
- collate evidence and align disparate strands
- generate new evidence, for instance through replicating previous approaches or through new work with prominent psychics
- make use of survival evidence, for instance, to build theories or integrate it into current scientific knowledge
- generate frameworks for theory-building
- stimulate thinking about fruitful approaches
- disseminate evidence, analysis, and results of research
The focus is on the truth or otherwise of survival claims: projects examining psychological or sociological aspects of belief in survival are unlikely to be considered.
Typical awards are in the order of £5,000 to £10,000 and are unlikely to exceed £15,000. The annual submission deadline is 1st June, except for applications for less than £1000, which may be considered at any time.
Proposals should be no more than three pages, outlining the project’s tasks, cost breakdown, outputs, strategic promise and relevance to the aims of the Fund. The proposer should demonstrate familiarity with relevant methods in survival research and place the work in the context of previous research. All proposals are considered by the SPR’s Survival Research Committee.
Click here to go to a Survival Research Committee Application Form for online completion. To download a blank form, click here, complete it, scan it, and return it by email to [email protected]. Please include a CV and the names of two referees.