The conference theme is “20 years on: from promise to practice.” It intends to investigate whether and how the promise of realist evaluation has been met in practice. By increasing understanding of how, when and why policies and programs do and do not work, policy makers and practitioners should be better able to select appropriate approaches for particular contexts, and to adapt their policies and programs to different contexts. As well as examining whether and how this has happened, the conference will continue to showcase developments in realist methodology. The conference offers international keynote speakers, a river-front venue with hotels next door, and multiple opportunities to mix and mingle with leading practitioners from around the world, within the conference itself and through the social programme. Pre-conference training workshops for policy officers, evaluators and researchers (with a stream designed for PhD students, their supervisors and early career researchers) are available. REGISTRATION is now open!