Open Sciences was created due to the response of the “Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science” published in the journal Explore in 2014. The second manifestation of that response is the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences. The AAPS is a 501(c) 3 non-profit membership and education organization whose mission is to promote open minded, rigorous and evidence-based enquiry into postmaterialist consciousness research.

AAPS Website Member Application

The ALIUS Research Group was created to study all aspects of consciousness, with a specific focus on unusual or understudied conscious states traditionally classified as Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs). It fosters a unique interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers, involving inter alia computer scientists, biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists and anthropologists, towards the development of a systematic and scientific model of ASCs supported by both theoretical work and experimental studies.

ALIUS Website

Animal navigation is one of the great unsolved mysteries of science, and this website brings together information and ideas in a thought-provoking and open-minded way.

Animal Navigation Website

Since 1994 the BIAL Foundation has supported nearly 800 projects involving hundreds of researchers from 29 countries, who've published over 2000 papers, over 1600 in indexed journals. Grants for research in Psychophysiology and Parapsychology are up to €60,000, determined by the Scientific board according to the needs of each project.

With the aim of encouraging research into the healthy human being, both from the physical and spiritual point of view, BIAL Foundation now opens a new call of its Grants Programme for Scientific Research 2022/2023.

Supported fields: Psychophysiology and Parapsychology.

Addressees: Scientific researchers, either individually or in groups.

Duration/commencement: Maximum 3 years; commencement between 1st of January and 31st of October 2023.

Total amount: Up to €60.000 per approved application.

Applications: No later than 31st of August 2022.

The following projects will not be considered eligible: a) Projects from Clinical or Experimental Models of Human Disease and Therapy; b) Projects whose main scope is eating behaviour, sexual behaviour, physical exercise or fundamental neuroscience.

Bial Foundation

The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) was founded in 2020 by aerospace entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow to support research into the survival of human consciousness after physical death and, following from that, the nature of “the afterlife.” In 2021, the Bigelow Institute awarded a total of $1.8 million in prize money for 29 winning essays from a dozen countries judged by an expert scientific panel to offer the best evidence for survival of consciousness after death.

In 2022, BICS announced a new funding program, “The Challenge,” offering up to $1 million for multiple research grants on contact/communication with the afterlife leading to wisdom acquisition. The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies is currently the leading organization in funding research into the survival of consciousness.

BICS Website

The Center for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology of Lund University, Sweden, consists of a group of researchers and associates dedicated to the scientific study of unusual but not pathological experiences and events, including reputed parapsychological phenomena. We endorse programmatic research using a plurality of methodologies, and are open to diverse perspectives in this area, as long as they are informed and respectful. Our aim is to continue developing multidisciplinary, national, and international collaborations, and train undergraduate and graduate students in a supportive environment.

LACH Website

A possible impact of a spiritual reality on the visible world is rarely considered in the mainstream scientific establishment. Hamatara Emet is a new research institute formed to gather open-minded, rigorous scientists and intellectuals and foster the creation of integrated multidisciplinary research groups which will reexamine scientific findings while being free from preliminary spiritual or anti-spiritual assumptions. It is a virtual space that provides a fruitful multidisciplinary environment to raise new ideas, organise research groups, have papers peer reviewed and prepared for submission to scientific journals.

Hamatara Emet Website

The Institut Metapsychique International (IMI) was established in 1919 under the patronage of Charles Richet, Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology/Medicine. It is a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to the scientific study of psi phenomena, and constitutes the principal center in France for parapsychological research and information. Situated in the center of Paris, the IMI also provides courses, lectures, scholarly expertise and counseling on exceptional experiences. Its specialized library and archives include over 6000 titles.

IMI Website in French

The Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP) in Freiburg, Germany engages in systematic and interdisciplinary research concerning insufficiently understood phenomena and anomalies at the frontiers of current scientific knowledge. They offer information, education and counseling for people with exceptional experiences, a comprehensive special library and a research archive for parapsychology and frontier areas of psychology.

The Institute maintains numerous scientific collaborations with universities and research institutes and supported research projects in and outside of Germany. Staff members of IGPP offer academic courses at the University of Freiburg and supervise diploma theses and dissertations.

IGPP Website

The Institute of Noetic Sciences was founded in 1972 by Apollo 14 astronaut, Edgar Mitchell. IONS is a worldwide membership organization that conducts and sponsors research on human potential, including the role of perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention and intuition. It is especially concerned with phenomena that don't fit into the conventional scientific model. The word 'noetic' comes from the Greek word for intuitive knowing. It points towards a new science of the human mind much broader than psychology has been to date. The Institute has a campus in Petaluma, near San Francisco, and sponsors meetings, conferences, and publishes a regular review and research publications. Its research interests include subtle energies and energy medicine, exploring states of consciousness, and the role of spirit and intention in health and healing.

IONS Website

IANDS’ promotes a responsible, multi-disciplinary exploration of near-death and similar experiences, their effects on people’s lives, and their implications for beliefs about life, death, and human purpose.

IANDS provides reliable information to caregivers, experiencers, and the public through its quarterly magazine Vital Signs. The organizatino encourages interest in research and professional applications through its Journal of Near-Death Studies, through small grants and an NDE Research Fund, by organizing conferences and other programs, and with the publication of an indexed bibliography to the periodical literature on near-death experiences.

To help Near-death experiencers with the challenges they face, IANDS has created support and interest groups around the world.

IANDS Website Journal of Near-Death Studies

International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) is an international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational consortium of some 75 members, most of whom were associated with the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory at Princeton University as interns or research collaborators over its thirty-year history. The goal is to extend the work of PEAR into a broader range of inquiry: to encourage a new generation of creative investigators to expand the boundaries of scientific understanding; and to strengthen the foundations of science by reclaiming its spiritual heritage. Ultimately, ICRL seek to integrate the subjective and objective dimensions of human experience into a self-reflective Science of the Subjective.

ICRL Website

The Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (LACH) was established at the University of Arizona Department of Psychology to to creatively and responsibly apply mainstream scientific methods to frontier questions in consciousness and health. Their eight specific areas of research are: volution of Consciousness and Understanding (Universal Hypotheses and Post-Materialism), The Role of Consciousness in Health and Healing, Survival of Consciousness After Death, Quantum Holographic Consciousness, Group and Global Consciousness, Animal Consciousness, Other Worldly / Higher Spiritual Consciousness, and the Universal Intelligence Hypothesis. Gary Schwartz is the current director of the LACH.

LACH Website

This Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psychic experiences such as telepathy, clairvoyance, remote viewing, psychokinesis, psychic healing and precognition. Such experiences seem to challenge contemporary conceptions of human nature and the physical world, and appear to involve the transfer of information in ways that are currently unexplained. The primary objection of the Parapsychological Association is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences. PA members develop and refine methodologies for studying psychic experiences and their physical, biological or psychological underpinnings. They assess hypotheses through experiments, conceptual models and field investigations in a spirit of open-minded skepticism. The PA provides an international forum of scholarly exchanges through annual conventions and through the publication of proceedings from these conferences. Affiliated with the PA is the peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Parapsychology.

Parapsychological Association Website

This Foundation, based in New York City, gives grants and organizes conferences. It encourages and supports impartial scientific enquiry into such seemingly psychical aspects of human nature as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, mediumship, ghosts and hauntings, out-of-the-body experiences, reincarnation and other psychic experiences and phenomena. The Foundation provides professional resources and information to the academic and lay communities and serves as a clearing house for information on parapsychology and psychical research.

Parapsychology Foundation Website

Plantando Consciência is a multidisciplinary non-profit organization in São Paulo, Brazil dedicated to ecodelic literacy and research. They investigate non-ordinary states of consciousness produced by these substances, and advocate for this Gaian technology as a reliable source of healing and learning. In order to do so, their work approaches many disciplines such as neurosciences, psychiatry, psychology, biology, physics, pharmacology, religion, anthropology and history, with the goal of understanding and legitimizing the use of these tools in the proper context, as well as their potential for medical and therapeutic use.

Plantando Consciencia Website

The Rhine Research Center is a nonprofit research and education organization established to explore the unusual types of experiences that suggest capabilities as yet unrecognized in the domain of human personality, and to investigate those capabilities thoroughly by exact scientific methods. The Center is the successor to the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory and carries forward that famed laboratory's research mission and educational programs. The current research emphasis is the application of these unusual capabilities in medicine, including intuitive diagnosis of illness and remote healing effects.

Rhine Research Center Website

The Ronin Institute is creating a new model for scholarly research that recognizes that the world outside of traditional academia is filled with smart, educated, passionate people who have a lot to offer to the world of scholarship. We aim to transform the way that scholarly research is coordinated and funded. Ultimately, we want anyone who is interested in pursuing high-quality scholarly research to be able to do so. Moreover, we want these people to be able to pursue their research in a way that is consistent with all of their life’s priorities.

Ronin Institute Website

Science Frontiers is a bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976. Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. Disciplines include archaeology, astronomy, biology, geology, geophysics, mathematics, psychology and physics. The Science Frontiers Web sites includes over 2000 digests that are fully searchable.

Science Frontiers Website

The SIS was formed in 1974 to consider the role global cosmic catastrophes may have played in our history, and even recorded by cultures worldwide in their oral and written ancient traditions. The society also consider the effect catastrophes have on other disciplines, such as biology, cosmology, geology, psychology, archaeoastronomy, astrophysics, linguistics, and other areas such as religion. Catastrophism demands that there should be corroboration between disciplines, making catastrophism truly interdisciplinary and inclusive. The society publishes Chronology and Catastrophism Review.

SIS Website

The Templeton World Charity Foundation - which is separate from the regular Templeton Foundation - has a truly ambitious consciousness project. They've created a complex, six stage procedure for grant development, and don't accept unsolicited proposals (outside open calls for their target initiatives). Experiments involving psi would certainly be relevant to their intention to investigate, and decide between, rival theories of consciousness. Having significantly funded nearly 100 projects with large universities, small colleges, nonprofits and private companies, they have a real chance of moving the whole field forwards.

We aim to provide scientific breakthroughs and practical tools relating to the search for meaning, purpose, and truth.

Using a variety of funding, networking and outreach mechanisms, we will support targeted scientific experiments to investigate different theories of consciousness.

Templeton World Charity Foundation Templeton Prize

The Center for Consciousness Studies (CCS), based at the University of Arizona, was formed in 1998 with a seed grant from the Fetzer Institute. The 1994 Tucson conference on "Toward a Science of Consciousness" is widely regarded as a landmark event, and the subsequent series of biennial conferences in Tucson organized by the Center have attracted extraordinary international, interdisciplinary interest. The Center is a unique institution whose aim is to bring together the perspectives of philosophy, the cognitive sciences, neuroscience, the social sciences, medicine, and the physical sciences, the arts and humanities, to move toward an integrated understanding of human consciousness. The Center is unique in its broad-spectrum approach. Other groups tend focus either on cognitive neuroscience, philosophy or purely phenomenal experiential approaches, whereas the Center not only integrates these areas, but "thinks outside the box" of conventional wisdom which has thus far, at least, failed to make significant breakthroughs. The Center has also inspired other groups such as the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness who organize other conferences.

CCS Website

This organization is skeptical about the assumptions on which mainstream astronomy and cosmology are founded. In particular its members question the assumption that gravitational fields are the dominant forces shaping the cosmos. They emphasize the role of electrical fields, currents and plasma discharges. They also criticize the assumption that objects exhibiting red shifts must be moving away from us. Instead, they suggest that red shift is more a measure of an object's youth than its velocity, and that the Universe is highly electrical in nature. Building on the work of modern plasma physics and cosmologists such as Halton Arp, they suggest a radically different approach to astronomy and cosmology, with significant ramifications in geology, history and biology. They also organize annual conferences and post regular online updates through the Thunderbolts Project website.

The Thunderbolts Project Peer-reviewed Papers Electric Universe Geology

Wal Thornhill: From Cosmic Currents to the Electric Sun | EU 2013 Conference

The Fortean Times is a monthly magazine of news, reviews and research on strange phenomena and experiences, curiosities, prodigies and portents. It was founded in 1973 to continue the work of Charles Fort, an eccentric independent researcher who was skeptical about scientific explanations for anomalous phenomena. He delighted in pointing out how scientists argued according to their own beliefs rather than the rules of evidence, showing how inconvenient data were ignored, suppressed, discredited or explained away. He spent many years researching scientific literature in the New York Public Library and the British Museum and marshaled his evidence and set out his philosophy in a series of books published between 1919 and 1932. The Fortean Times continues his tradition in a lively and amusing form. Its sub-title is 'The Journal of Strange Phenomena'.

Fortean Times Website

Consciousness Medical Therapeutics Aeronautics & Space Sciences Energy & Environment Archaeology Historical Events Life Sciences

Headed by philanthropist Christopher Foyle, FRIM supports innovative and controversial science in seven areas.

While the institute accepts unsolicited proposals for funding, any proposal must be highly innovative and impactful. Their focus is on near term applications more than basic research, however they encourage proposals for ideas "outside your area of expertise" or simply "research you would like to see but can't do yourself".

"In order to reduce the amount of paperwork for researchers, the Foyle Research Institute of Monaco (FRIM) will be using a "Pre-Proposal" system, whereby researchers will be requested to submit a 1-3 page executive summary of the research they are proposing. Using such a system serves both the researchers and FRIM, in that researchers do not have to spend a great deal of effort developing a fully detailed proposal and risk it not being accepted for funding."

— FRI Proposal Guidlines

The Institute for Research on Extraordinary Experiences (INREES) presents rigorous scientific research while keeping in mind, as emphasized by the scientists themselves, that the knowledge we have about the nature of reality is limited and uncertain. It offers testimonials on unexplained experiences reported in good faith by tens of thousands of people, allowing them to be heard without prejudging. It also provides advice and support for these people, considering the unjustified skepticism they often face.

INREES Website

IVS is interested in a wide range of subjects, from gravity, magnetism, relativity and the physics of water to consciousness, NDEs and remote viewing to cancer and global warming.

"The Institute for Venture Science (IVS) will fund high-risk, non-traditional scientific inquiries that may produce fundamental breakthroughs. We identify the most promising challenges to prevailing paradigms. We then simultaneously fund multiple research groups worldwide for each selected challenge."

"The IVS will fund the idea, not just the person advancing that idea. That is, it will seek out and fund multiple groups using diverse approaches to pursue the same unconventional idea. A dozen – even a half dozen - groups cannot be ignored. Challenger and orthodoxy will therefore compete on equal footing, and the better of the two approaches will soon prevail."

The Institute for Venture Science Website

The International Academy of Consciousness (IAC) is a truly global non-profit research and education organization with a presence in nine countries, as well as a research campus in Portugal. The IAC conducts formal and informal research on psychic phenomena, particularly involving the out-of-body experience and the projection of consciousness outside of the physical body using individual experience, the development of intersubjective abilities, and laboratory research methodologies. IAC publishes research papers and articles related to the study of the consciousness. IAC also offers a Global Award for Scientific Contribution to Conscientiology to encourage researchers who've made significant advances in consciousness science.

Although IAC is an organization which studies and teaches techniques to develop psi capacities, it advocates a sense of healthy, open-minded skepticism. The IAC is not affiliated with any religious, political, or governmental organization and its activities are solely for research and educational purposes.

IAC Website

The Laszlo Institute seeks to become a leading-edge, internationally recognized center of research, promoting the new paradigm emerging in science and society, and exploring and disseminating its implications and applications in regard to human wellbeing and social and ecological sustainability.

Their mission is to open fresh theoretical and practical perspectives based on cutting-edge scientific research, bringing together open-minded scientists and lay people to develop and communicate emerging ideas.

About The Laszlo Institute

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) was established in 1998 by the US Congress at the National Institute of Health to support research on complementary and alternative medicine. The NCCIH advocates for quality science, rigorous research and an open-minded enquiry into which practices work, which do not, and why. Its over-riding mission is to find reliable information about the safety and effectiveness of complementary and alternative medical practices. The Center has a budget of about $100 million per year and gives grants for innovative research to test alternative and complementary therapies, for conducting controlled randomized clinical trials, for investigating placebo effects, and for investigating acupuncture. It also provides training opportunities for researchers and career development awards. This is by far the best-funded organization for pioneering research in unconventional areas.

NCCIH Website

The Institute serves as a local, national, and international forum for research, education, and the exchange of ideas about the re-visioning of science and technology in an effort to realign humanity with nature. The Nature Institute's methodology is inspired by integrative thinkers and scientists, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Rudolf Steiner, Owen Barfield, and Kurt Goldstein.

The Nature Institute Website

The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN) is a worldwide professional community and membership organisation for open-minded, rigorous and evidence-based enquiry into themes bridging science, spirituality and consciousness. It promotes a cultural shift in our understanding of reality and human experience beyond the limits imposed by exclusively materialist and reductionist approaches.

The Network brings together discerning people who are inclined to a non-materialist interpretation of the universe and who have a sympathetic interest in parapsychological and spiritual matters. It plays a critical role as a supportive group, where everyone’s efforts towards developing an open and disciplined mind may be refined. Hence Network conferences, seminars and special interest groups provide a safe haven in which frontier issues and ideas at the interface between science, spirituality and consciousness can be freely explored and tested against the evidence, furthering personal growth and inner development.

SMN is the co-ordinator of the Galileo Commission, and publishes the Paradigm Explorer journal.

SMN Website the Galileo Commission

The Society for Psychical Research, founded in Britain in 1882, is the longest-established organization anywhere in the world for exploring unexplained human abilities. Its purpose is to "advance the understanding of events and abilities commonly described as 'psychic' or 'paranormal' without prejudice and in a scientific manner." The Society does this by promoting and supporting important research and by publishing scholarly reports. It acts as a forum for debate, organizes conferences, meetings and study days and publishes a peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research and a more informal newsletter, The Paranormal Review.

The Psi Encyclopedia is a new resource being created by the Society for Psychical Research in London, partly as an alternative to Wikipedia and its pseudo-skeptical bias against Psi topics.

SPR Website Psi Encyclopedia

The Society was founded in 1982 by a committee of scientists and scholars to foster the study of questions that are amenable to scientific investigation, without restriction. Despite the enormous advances in science in the last century there are important areas that remain almost unexplored, some of great public interest. Is the mind a machine or an entity in some sense independent of the body? Is there credible evidence that life exists on other planets, or that our solar system has ever been visited by extra terrestrial beings? Some areas have technological potentials that could be of great benefit. Do some human beings have the capacity of locating water and other resources? Are there sources of energy available to mankind other than sunlight, fossil fuels and nuclear energy? The Society has about 800 members and associates from more than 45 countries and provides a forum for the presentation and criticism of research. It holds regular meetings and conferences and publishes a quarterly peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Scientific Exploration.

SSE Website

NUPES, Núcleo de Pesquisas em Espiritualidade e Saúde (The Interface Between Sciences, Spirituality And Health), is a Brazil-based bilingual internet TV channel in Portuguese and English on spirituality, science and health.

TV NUPES YouTube Channel

Recent research on water has revealed many surprises, including the existence of highly-ordered regions of water near hydrophilic surfaces, so-called Exclusion Zones, and the ability of structured water to draw energy form ambient infra-red radiation, with many biological implications. Recent discoveries about this "fourth phase" of water could lead to new technologies for filtration, desalination and water-based solar energy. One of the leaders in this field is Dr Gerald Pollack, at the University of Washington, Seattle. Pollack is also the editor of Water, a multidisciplinary research journal. Researchers form many water-related disciplines meet at the Annual Conferences on the Physics, Chemistry and Biology of water, which are remarkably open-minded scientific gatherings.

Water Research Website

WISE conducts scientific research and development in social, biomedical and natural science fields. Their worldwide resource center has over 30,000 pages covering all aspects of complementary medicine, consciousness, new forms of energy, anomalous phenomena, and other subjects; including people, organizations and periodicals.

WISE Website The WISE Worldwide Resource Center

WISE publishes their own multidisciplinary WISE Journal which covers mysterious phenomana in science, technology, history, and other fields of knowledge. It was formerly called the WISE Newsletter.