The 2026 SEMPRE PGR/ECR Conference will take place on 16 April 2026 at the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge.It will be hosted by the Centre for Music and Science (University of Cambridge) and the Music, Mind and Brain group (Goldsmiths College, University of London).
The remit of the conference is music psychology and music education; we invite contributions from all parts of these disciplines. The focus of the conference is postgraduate and early career researchers (PGRs/ECRs), and so preference will be given to submissions from those groups.
Successful submissions will be invited to give oral or poster presentations. There will be ample opportunity for PGR/ECR networking before and after the sessions!
In addition to presentations from PGRs and ECRs, we are very happy that Dr Marcus Pearce (Queen Mary University of London) will be delivering a keynote presentation. Marcus is a key figure of the music cognition community, having developed one of the most prominent computational models of musical expectation, and having published widely on the cognitive and brain mechanisms involved in the perception, creation, and appreciation of music.
Applications for presentations should be made via this online form. Applicants will be asked to provide a 500-word unstructured abstract, and to indicate a preference for a type of presentation (oral versus poster).
The deadline for submissions is 5 December 2025. However, it will still be possible to register as a non-presenter after this date. Registration will open in January; we anticipate only a small registration fee.
If you’re not ready to make a submission, but you want to make sure you receive future emails about this conference, please visit this link. For further information, please contact sempre2026conference@gmail.com.