Academic conference
An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journals and preprint archives, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers. Further benefits of participating in academic conferences include learning effects in terms of presentation skills and "academic habitus", receiving feedback from peers for one's own research, the possibility to engage in informal communication with peers about work opportunities and collaborations, and getting an overview of current research in one or more disciplines.[1][2]
Organization[edit]
Conferences are usually organized either by a scientific society or by a group of researchers with a common interest. Larger meetings may be handled on behalf of the scientific society by a Professional Conference Organiser or PCO.[8]
The meeting is announced by way of a Call For Papers (CFP) or a Call For Abstracts, which is sent to prospective presenters and explains how to submit their abstracts or papers. It describes the broad theme and lists the meeting's topics and formalities such as what kind of abstract (summary) or paper has to be submitted, to whom, and by what deadline. A CFP is usually distributed using a mailing list or on specialized online services. Contributions are usually submitted using an online abstract or paper management service.
Environmental impact[edit]
Academic conferences are criticized for being environmentally unfriendly, due to the amount of airplane traffic generated by them.[11] A correspondence on Nature.com points out the "paradox of needing to fly to conferences" despite increased calls for sustainability by environmental scientists.[12][13] The academic community's carbon footprint is comprised in large parts by emissions caused by air travel.[14] Few conferences enacted practices to reduce their environmental impact by 2017, despite guidelines being widely available: An analysis of academic conferences taking place in 2016 showed that only 4% of 116 conferences sampled offered carbon offset options and only 9% of these conferences implemented any form of action to their reduce environmental impact.[13] More conferences included the use of teleconferencing after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Critique of in-person conferences[edit]
In-person conferences suffer from a number of issues.[15] Most importantly, they are fostering the existing social inequality in academia due to their inaccessibility for researchers from low income countries, researchers with care duties or researchers facing visa restrictions.