One of the positive aspects of working in academic research is (or at least was) participating in congresses, not only to present one’s own work and meet other scientists, but also for the travelling experience.
For one year now, scientific congresses and conferences have been either canceled or hold as online events, something to which we are getting used. But is this the future of congresses? Will be able to attend real conferences anytime soon?
Like everything else, online events have both advantages and disadvantages, often two faces of the same coin. Here is a list of the pros and cons of online scientific meetings, according to my personal point of you.
- You don’t need to travel
PRO: this reduces the overall costs for the attendees, transport-related air pollution, and the amount of time necessary to reach the venue.
CON: we lose the opportunity to travel and know other realities; most congresses offer travel grants for PhD students or scientist coming from low-income countries, who often do not have any other possibility to travel abroad.
2. You can attend a congress from your own home or office
PRO: you gain flexibility, for example, you can attend a presentation and at the same time engage in other activities like preparing graphs from your data, or doing your chores.
CON: getting distracted or interrupted is way easier; some people (including me) have a short attention span for online contents, with the result that the presentation, although interesting, will end up in the back burner.
3. Access to recording of the talks is often included in the registration fees
PRO: this can be very helpful if you missed a talk you were very interested in, either because you got distracted by someone or something else, or because more talks were scheduled at the same time in parallel sessions.
CON: if you were not really motivated to attend the congress, you could find yourself endlessly postponing the viewing of those recordings.
4. Registration fees are (usually) cheaper for online congresses than for traditional ones
PRO: if you have a limited budget you can attend more congresses than what it would be possible with in-person congresses.
CON: you may be tempted to sign up for congresses you are not interested in, just because they are cheap, without actually attending them or not giving them the attention they deserve (Black Friday effect).
5. The interaction with speakers and other delegates is not direct
PRO: For the shy or introverted ones, who would not feel at ease to raise their hand and ask questions in front of the entire audience of a congress, online events are the perfect solution: you can switch your camera off, or ask a question by using the chat.
CON: The speakers do not see nor hear their audience, and cannot know if they are keeping their listeners’ attention (it is literary speaking alone with your computer).
6. There are no (real) coffee breaks with (fake) coffee and pastries
PRO: coffee at congresses is rarely of good quality, you are spared those awkward moments in which everyone aims to the last pastry in the tray, and you do not risk to feel embarrassed if you approach your favourite speaker to ask questions about his/her talk exactly when he/she is taking a bite of sandwich.
CON: there is no room for networking. Even if some online congresses have dedicated chatrooms, technology is not as efficient as personal interaction. Informal interaction of in-person congresses have an added value and can have important professional implications. In my case, attending in-person international congresses was a springboard to my post-doc in London.
To be honest, I don’t like online congresses very much, partly because I have very short attention span in front of a computer screen, and partly because I miss the personal experience of attending congresses, often an enjoyable (even if demanding) diversion from routine. Attending in-person congresses and meeting is also useful to improve one’s own self-esteem, gives the opportunity to meet more senior researcher, and more often than not you go back home with new ideas for your work, and sometimes with new professional contacts that can lead to collaboration or new projects.
Despite the unquestionable advantages of on-line events, I hope that, once we leave this pandemic behind us, we could enjoy again the all-around experience of in-person scientific congresses.
Virus&Co. 