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Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements

View ORCID ProfileSarvenaz Sarabipour, View ORCID ProfileBenjamin Schwessinger, View ORCID ProfileFiona N. Mumoki, View ORCID ProfileAneth D. Mwakilili, View ORCID ProfileAziz Khan, View ORCID ProfileHumberto J. Debat, View ORCID ProfilePablo J. Sáez, View ORCID ProfileSamantha Seah, View ORCID ProfileTomislav Mestrovic
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.022079
Sarvenaz Sarabipour
1Institute for Computational Medicine & Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
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  • For correspondence: ssarabi2@jhu.edu
Benjamin Schwessinger
2Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Acton 2601, ACT, Australia
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Fiona N. Mumoki
3Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, South Africa
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Aneth D. Mwakilili
4Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Plant Protection Department, Alnarp, Sweden
5University of Dar es Salaam, Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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Aziz Khan
6Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), Nordic EMBL Partnership, University of Oslo, 0318, Oslo, Norway
7Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
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Humberto J. Debat
8Center of Agronomic Research, National Institute of Agricultural Technology (IPAVE-CIAP-INTA), Córdoba, Argentina
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Pablo J. Sáez
9Institut Curie, Paris Sciences & Lettres Research University, CNRS, UMR 144, F-75005, France
10Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
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Samantha Seah
11European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Genome Biology Unit, Heidelberg, Germany
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Tomislav Mestrovic
12Clinical Microbiology and Parasitology Unit, Poliklinika Dr. Zora Profozic, Zagreb, Croatia
13University Centre Varazdin, University North, Varazdin, Croatia
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Abstract

Scientific conferences provide valuable opportunities for researchers across career stages and disciplines to present their latest work and to network with their peers. The advent of the internet has opened new possibilities for interaction, collaboration and networking, yet the uptake of tools enabling remote participation at scientific meetings has been slow. Academic conferences have become more international with high proliferation in the number of meetings and attendees, but the format and quality of their organization lags behind what is possible. As a result, the experience of attending conferences in many disciplines today is not appreciably different in many respects. A few conferences in some disciplines have recently implemented valuable changes for the community and have become more receptive to attendees with families. Many meetings could still be improved significantly in terms of diversity, inclusivity, promoting early career researcher (ECR) networking and career development, venue accessibility, and more importantly, reducing the meetings’ carbon footprint. These issues are openly visible and to some extent discussed among researchers on social media. It is important to accelerate and mandate these efforts so that researchers in all disciplines, in particular ECRs, consistently benefit from scientific gatherings, for years to come. We examined the current state of over 260 national and international academic meetings in various disciplines for features of inclusivity and sustainability and propose solutions to make conferences more modern, effective, equitable and intellectually productive for the research community and environmentally sustainable for our planet.

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

— Andy Warhol

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • This version of the manuscript was revised to reflect our updated database of now 270 academic conferences. We provide updated text and analysis of various features of 270 scientific meetings in Figures 1, 2 and 7. We have additionally included a new figure to demonstrate the feasibility and reach of two recently held large fully virtual scientific conferences (Figure 5).

  • https://elifeambassadors.github.io/improving-conferences/

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements
Sarvenaz Sarabipour, Benjamin Schwessinger, Fiona N. Mumoki, Aneth D. Mwakilili, Aziz Khan, Humberto J. Debat, Pablo J. Sáez, Samantha Seah, Tomislav Mestrovic
bioRxiv 2020.04.02.022079; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.022079
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Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements
Sarvenaz Sarabipour, Benjamin Schwessinger, Fiona N. Mumoki, Aneth D. Mwakilili, Aziz Khan, Humberto J. Debat, Pablo J. Sáez, Samantha Seah, Tomislav Mestrovic
bioRxiv 2020.04.02.022079; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.022079

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