The René Warcollier Prize

Warcollier Prize Call for Proposals

René Warcollier

Rene Warcollier

René Warcollier was born on 8 April 1881 at Omonville-la-Rouge in Paris. He obtained a degree in chemical engineering in 1903 from the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie. He patented several processes related to the synthetic production of precious stones, and invented special screens for movie projection.

In parapsychology, Warcollier first served as treasurer of the Institut Métapsychique International (1929–1938), then editor of its journal, the Revue Métapsychique, (1938–1940), and then as its president (1951–1962). He died on 23 May 1962.

(Pleasants, H. (Ed.). (1964). Biographical dictionary of parapsychology. New York, NY, US: Helix.)

IRVA and iRiS Intuition Sponsor the René Warcollier Prize

The International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA), in partnership with iRiS Intuition, Paris, France is pleased to announce the competition for an award for remote viewing research. The Warcollier Prize is a financial prize jointly created and shared by IRVA and iRiS Intuition and presented to the winner of a judged competition for the best research proposal investigating some aspect of remote viewing.

Description

The Warcollier Prize reflects the commitment of IRVA and iRiS Intuition to the development of remote viewing (RV) and the promotion of the highest standards in remote viewing research. The award includes a sum of $3,000 USD to the winning scientific experimental proposal.

Announcement of the award and recipient(s), along with a summary of the proposed experiment will be published in a subsequent issue of IRVA’s magazine Aperture.

Award recipients are expected to present findings of the funded study at an IRVA conference, submit a research report based upon results, and draft an article on the experiment suitable for publication in Aperture.

Eligibility

Any competent researcher, regardless of institutional affiliation or academic background, may submit an application for the award. Employees, officers, and directors of IRVA and iRiS Intuition are not eligible for participation.

Application Requirements

Proposed research should directly involve remote viewing or investigate some aspect of human consciousness relevant to remote viewing.

All applications for the award must include:

  • Cover Sheet: Completed IRVA/iRiS Intuition research application cover sheet. This may be prepared on a separate sheet of paper following the format presented on the example cover sheet. Uusing the example cover sheet itself is not necessary.
  • Biographical Addendum: A separate page with the biographical summary of the principal investigator(s) is to be included with the Cover Sheet.
  • Proposal: An approximate two-page overview of what is being researched; how the research will be conducted; relevance to remote viewing; and how it will advance understanding of remote viewing and human consciousness.
  • Experimental Design Document: Includes blinding, statistical, randomization, analysis, and other relevant protocols; research participant pool and selection procedures; and time line for experiment execution, and milestones.

NOTE: The Proposal and Experimental Design Document must be submitted in PDF format and anonymized for judging. So please do NOT include any identifying information on any pages including headers or footers. Do NOT submit the Cover Sheet and the Biographical Addendum in PDF format.

  • A sample participant consent form suitable for experimentation on human subjects for review by an Institutional Review Board if applicable.
  • An itemized budget showing anticipated expenses, with a list of additional sources and amounts of funding if the budget exceeds award.
  • The entire application package, consisting of application cover sheet, proposal, experimental design, contact and biographical information, consent form and budget, must not exceed 15 pages. Applications exceeding 15 pages in length will NOT be considered.

Application Submission

The submission package must be submitted by email to irvasubmissions@gmail.com no later than Midnight, Pacific Time, on the published submission date. Those that arrive after the closing date, or which do not fulfill the required criteria, may not be considered.

Applicants will be notified as to the judges’ decision regarding their proposal as soon as possible after the closing date. The funds awarded will be available for research within two weeks after winner announcement.

In the event no entry is deemed suitable, the Award will not be available until the next Award cycle.

Evaluation Criteria

Judging will be by research evaluators selected by IRVA and iRiS Intuition. Evaluators will score each application on a scale of 1 to 5, in each of the following six areas for a possible total of 30 points:

  • Relevance (from (1) not relevant to (5) very relevant).
    Applicant will make a compelling case for why the research project is relevant to the field of remote viewing and what is expected to be learned from the research.
  • Potential to advance the field (rated from (1) little potential to (5) significant potential).
    Applicant will make a compelling case for why the research project will advance understanding of remote viewing and contribute to related aspects of human potential, consciousness and psi research in general.
  • Understanding of prior research (rated from (1) poor to (5) excellent).
    Applicant will provide an organized, focused review of relevant prior research on which the study is built. This can include a brief summary of remote viewing research or remote viewing application investigations that provide a basis for the specific approaches in the research project.
  • Methodology (from (1) flawed to (5) very sound).
    Applicant will provide a detailed rationale for the proposed protocol and experimental design, along with a clear and accurate description of how the design will help meet the purposes of the study. Applicant will indicate how standard scientific protocols will be applied.
  • Feasibility of study (from (1) not feasible to (5) easily completed).
    Applicant will propose a study that can be completed within the specified time and budget constraints. Applicant will indicate how activity scheduling will be implemented and managed. Applicant will indicate how various support personnel are obtained and integrated into the research plan..
  • Analytic plan (from (1) poor to (5) excellent).
    Applicant will detail a complete and appropriate plan to analyze the research data and how the data analyzers are selected and scheduled.

The judges for evaluating the Proposals and Experimental Design Documents will score each application; the applications scores tallied; and the highest scoring application awarded the prize. In the event of a tie, each judge will vote by ranking the tied applications. The application with the highest ranked score will be awarded the prize.

In addition to these evaluation criteria, the judges are requested to provide comments for each of their ratings, especially if weaknesses are present. If the weaknesses for the winning submission cannot be corrected, it will be withdrawn and the second rated entry will be considered. The IRVA Board of Directors will perform a final review of the winning proposal.

If no application exceeds a scoring threshold of two thirds of the total possible score the award may not be presented.

Reporting Requirements

Winner agrees to execute the experiment, formalize the results, and report them (whether positive, mixed, or negative), to the IRVA Board of Directors as soon as possible after completion of the project. The IRVA Board of Directors are to be notified immediately for any unexpected delays or circumstances. If significant, the project may be terminated.

An Interim Report of 2-3 pages will be submitted mid-way through the research period. The Final Report will be based on the research project and of the quality and format compatible with professional standards. A Summary Article of the research project is required for Aperture. Author(s) are encouraged to submit their project for publication in a peer review journal of their choice with appropriate acknowledgment of IRVA and iRiS Intuition support for the research.

Funding Disbursement

Funding will be linked to the approval of the Interim Report, Final Report and Summary Article for Aperture. Winner will receive 50% ($1,500 USD) of the total award at the beginning of the research period, 25% ($750 USD) upon acceptance of the Interim Report, and 25% ($750 USD) upon acceptance of the Final Report and the Summary Article for Aperture.

After completing the research, the principle investigator will be asked to provide a brief account of “lessons learned” that could be of benefit to others and future Warcollier research projects.

Contact

If you have any questions about the application process, please send an email to: irvasubmissions@gmail.com with this “Question re: Warcollier Award” in the Subject line and this will be directed to the appropriate parties for a quick response.

Downloads

To ensure your application is properly submitted, please download the following instructions and cover sheet.

Warcollier Award Application Instructions
Warcollier Award Application Cover Sheet

 

 

Schedule

  1. Call for proposals released by IRVA – January 15 — January 30, 2022
  2. Proposal Submission deadline – May 7, 2022
  3. Submissions reviewed for blinding and transmission to evaluators – May 8 — May 15, 2022
  4. Proposals reviewed by evaluators – May 16 — June 11, 2022
  5. Announce Winner – June 15, 2022
  6. Research period by winner – June 16 — December 1, 2022
  7. Final report – February 15, 2023
  8. Draft Aperture Article – February 28, 2023
  9. Final Report review and Aperture Article review and approval by IRVA – March 15, 2023
  10. Completion – March 26, 2023

Prior Warcollier Prize Winners

2021 – Investigation of ARV Session – Event Time Delay and Judging Protocols for Horse Race predictions
Tom Atwater Ph.D., T. W. (Teresa) Fendley
2019 – Associations Among Experience, Confidence, Transliminality and Ability to Locate and Describe Targets in Experienced Remote Viewers
Jennifer Lyke, Ph.D.
Stockton University, Galloway, NJ
2017 – Associative Remote Viewing: A Proof of Principle Study
Maximilian Muller, Laura Muller, Marc Wittmann, Ph.D.
Helmut Schmidt University/ University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg, Germany
Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany
2015 – The Effects of Background Conditions within Pictorial Target and Remote Viewer’s Object Recognition
Debra Katz, Michelle Bulgatz
2012 – Remote Searching; An Evaluation of Dowsing and Intuition
Robert Price, Ph.D., James L, King, Jan. E. Six, Ph.D.
Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies (INACS), Austin, TX
2011 – Explorations into Remote Viewing Microscopic Organisms
Lance Beem, Ph.D., Debra Katz, M. Morse