The beliefs and traditions that revolve around the meaning of death play an important role in every culture, but how do these ideas vary and what are the implications for those in a society that is forced to confront questions of mortality? The 11th Death, Dying and Disposal conference, held at The Open University under the auspices of ASDS (The Association for the Study of Death and Society) in September 2013, examined how academic research feeds into and influences what practitioners believe and what they do, as well as evaluating how this influences the care and treatment of people at the end of their lives.