Improving on legacy conferences by moving online

Abstract

Scientific conferences and meetings have an important role in research, but they also suffer from a number of disadvantages: in particular, they can have a massive carbon footprint, they are time-consuming, and the high costs involved in attending can exclude many potential participants. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation of many conferences, forcing the scientific community to explore online alternatives. Here, we report on our experiences of organizing an online neuroscience conference, neuromatch, that attracted some 3000 participants and featured two days of talks, debates, panel discussions, and one-on-one meetings facilitated by a matching algorithm. By offering most of the benefits of traditional conferences, several clear advantages, and with fewer of the downsides, we feel that online conferences have the potential to replace many legacy conferences.

Evaluating features of scientific conferences: A call for improvements

“…Face-to-face interactions at conferences are important in generating new ideas, networks and collaborations. These interactions can be facilitated via digital conferencing that has made online face-to-face contact possible ( Figure 5) (52)(53)(54)(55)(56)148,153). Reducing academic air travel does not impact professional success (57) and holding connected meetings across major continental centers around the world is feasible using online streaming and chat technologies which create more space for researchers to interact and connect.…”

“…Live streaming provides many benefits including attendee chat amongst other online attendees in real time, access to sessions that work for attendee schedules, and the ability to stream sessions from any devices while on the go. The number of conferences that are streamed digitally or held in a virtual reality setting are limited -only 8% (18/270) of the conferences that we analysed provided digital talks, recorded talks or electronic posters -but these have increased over the past few years ( Figure 5) (53,55,58,(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)148,149,153), and many more are urgently needed in all disciplines. In the end, reducing one's physical conference attendance might make the remaining conferences more impactful and rewarding.…”

“…Scientific electronic panels can be held via platforms such as Virtual Keynote Symposia (VKS), Zoom, Crowdcast, Vimeo livestream, OBS, ON24, Meet by Google, GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting, allowing both video conferencing and the opportunity to break into "breakout rooms" accommodating one-on-one and small discussion groups (e.g. via Slack or Discourse) (18,19,23,57,77,78,153). These platforms and others are being utilized for scientific chats on a daily and weekly basis where ideas are exchanged and collaborations are shaped among researchers (79,80).…”

“…Digital conferences are organized when travel is not possible due to disease outbreaks such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic (41,63,66,67,143). In addition to the added socio-economic and ethnic diversity, digital conferencing can increase diversity of the career stages and genders of attendees, which in turn improves the quality of the scientific research and the conferences (144,153). Currently, graduate and postdoctoral trainees on average produce about three times less emissions from air travel than fully tenured professors, and female academics also travel less than their male colleagues (26,145).…”

“…With over 70% of attendees comprising graduate and postdoctoral trainees, Neuromatch 2020 meeting included poster sessions, short talks, invited and contributed talks as well as one-on-one meetings. Neuromatch 2020 also achieved an equal number of men and women in invited speakers(153) (Raw Data on attendee numbers and geographic locations courtesy of Dr. Konrad Kording, University of Pennsylvania, Drs. Andrea Armani, University of Southern California and Orad Reshef, University of Ottawa).…”