From Wednesday 31 July – Friday 2 August 2024, Warwick Law School hosted the 26th Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) 2024. Critical Realism is a philosophy that defends the possibility of scientific knowledge in both the natural and the social sciences and affirms the importance of ontology to the understanding of epistemology. It has under-laboured for the sciences across a whole range of disciplines, including law, justice and social justice, philosophy and methodology, gender studies, politics and political theory, education, environment and climate studies, and business and economics.

A pre-conference workshop also took place from 29-30 July 2024 which provided the opportunity for postgraduate researchers from a range of academic disciplines to present their work and receive individualised mentorship from critical realist scholars. We thank Dr Catherine Hastings from Macquarie University (Australia) and Professor Doug Porpora from Drexel University (US) (and current president of IACR), for organising and facilitating the workshop.

The theme for this year’s main conference that followed the workshop was to 'look back in order to look forward' and it marked the first anniversary of the death of Maggie Archer, former Professor of Sociology and Head of Department at the University of Warwick. Her work on social morphogenesis and social ontology is well-established in the social sciences. It also marked the tenth anniversary of Roy Bhaskar’s death, a philosopher who was instrumental in establishing IACR, developing the original philosophy of critical realism and making it interdisciplinary. We had a strong international presence with 130 participants attending IACR 2024 (approx. 80 in person and 50 online) including scholars from 29 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, The Philippines, Turkey, Uganda, UK and USA. Thanks to funding provided by the Departments of Law, Sociology and Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, IACR was able to award 12 generous bursaries for postgraduate and early career researchers to attend the pre-conference workshop and present at the main conference, increasing inclusivity and fostering intellectual development for emerging critical realist scholars. Reflecting the fact that this multi- and interdisciplinary conference was hosted by the School of Law, three panels were streamed around legal issues for the first time in its history. Contacts and connections were made which will support critical realist legal studies going forward.

The organisers would like to thank everyone who presented their research and otherwise contributed to making the conference a success. With special thanks to Professor Alan Norrie, former president of IACR, for bringing IACR to Warwick Law School, and to Associate Professor Amanda Wilson, Belinda Rawson, James White, Professor Henrique Carvalho, and Dr Paula Hollstein-Barria for playing an important role in organising and facilitating the hybrid conference.

Photos from the event: