We are SIPS.

Our mission is to promote communication and cooperation between research centers and scholars in order to facilitate rapid dissemination of research results and theoretical ideas concerning placebo studies. Our goals are to use multidisciplinary tools (neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, history, anthropology, and philosophy) to examine the physiological and psychological mechanisms underlying placebo effects, and to develop ethically acceptable methods to harness the placebo effect to improve treatment outcomes.

We aim to accomplish these goals by developing a web-based contact list for members, maintaining a listserve that will provide an efficient means for sharing ideas or raising questions within our scholarly community, and promoting international conferences at which new research results and theoretical ideas can be presented. We also seek to promote empirical, conceptual, and ethical understanding of the placebo effect among academic researchers, healthcare professionals, and the public.