Organizing committee:
- John Dougherty (LMU)
- Alexander Franklin (KCL)
- Eleanor Knox (KCL)
- Patricia Palacios (Salzburg)
- Bryan Roberts (LSE)
- Giovanni Valente (PoliMi)
- Jim Weatherall (Irvine)
- Charlotte Werndl (Salzburg)
Call for Abstracts:
Over the past decades, important contributions to the mathematical and conceptual foundations of physical theories have been made within the philosophical community. Conversely, critical analysis of the formal structures of our best physical theories inform central philosophical concerns, and in some cases new theorems have been proven and new lines of argument developed that are of philosophical significance. This conference series aims to bring together philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians working on such issues.
This year’s event will be held on June 1-2 at LMU Munich (Munich, Germany). It will immediately precede a workshop on “Open Systems in Physics” taking place on June 2-3, 2026. Our expected list of speakers includes Siska de Baerdemaeker (Stockholm), Michael Cuffaro (LMU), Alexander Franklin (KCL), Viktoria Kabel (ETH Zurich), Karim Thébault (Bristol), and Charlotte Werndl (Salzburg).
Papers on any topic of philosophy and foundations of physics by early career researchers, especially graduate students and post-doctoral scholars, will be given priority. Submissions by scholars under-represented within the philosophy and foundations of physics community are especially encouraged. Abstracts no longer than 1000 words should be submitted via https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80636/submitter by 1 March 2026.
Decisions will be communicated soon after.
Registration:
Please register here.
Schedule:
Conference Programme 1-2 June
June 1st
09:00-09:45 Aaron Collavini: “Foundations of torsion theories of gravity”
09:50-10:35 Sanne Vergouwen: “Are wormholes physically unreasonable?”
10:35-11:00 Coffee
11:00-11:45 Dominik Ehrenfels: “The science of the possible”
11:50-12:35 Antoine Brandelet: “Towards a counterfactual account of physical and formal analogies”
12:35-14:00 Lunch
14:00-14:45 Ana-Maria Crețu: “The neglect of micro-observers”
14:50-15:35 Dominic Ryder: “Is the Standard Model an effective field theory? ”
15:35-16:00 Coffee
16:00-16:45 Bernardo Marques: “The direction of renormalisation: The A-theorem and scale asymmetry in QFT”
16:50-17:35 Simone Salzano: “Renormalization all the way down! ”
June 2nd
09:30-10:15 Yongwoo Yi: “Symmetry undermines separability”
10:20-11:05 Arthur Saraiva: “Identity, individuation, and persistence in quantum systems of similar particles”
11:05-11:30 Coffee
11:30-12:15 Pascal Rodríguez-Warnier: “Thermodynamics in the context of the open system view: the case of fluctuations”
12:20-12:55 Aditya Jha: “Thermodynamics of small (open) systems: A case for stochastic thermodynamics at strong coupling”
Workshop Programme 2-3 June
June 2nd
14:30-15:40 Michael Cuffaro: "Framework Fundamentality"
15:40-16:00 Coffee
16:00-17:10 Siska De Baerdemaeker: “When did the universe open up?”
June 3rd
10:00-11:10 Karim Thébault: “Quantum Hubble Friction”
11:10-11:40 Coffee
11:40-12:50 Daniele Oriti: "The universe from the inside: cosmology as quantum gravity hydrodynamics"
12:50-14:10 Lunch
14:10-15:20 Viktoria Kabel: “Quantum reference frames, subsystem relativity, and their implications for open quantum systems”
15:20-15:50 Coffee
15:50-17:00 Alexander Franklin: “Open Systems, Decoherence, and Local Emergence”
The ILMPS conference 2026 and the workshop on “Open Systems in Physics” are financially supported by the Postdoc Support Fund at LMU Munich. More information can be found on the conference website: ILMPS 2026