Conferences are invaluable experiences for updating\nknowledge; for hearing from (and maybe even meeting) important figures in the\nfield; for sharing new science with peers, getting feedback and gaining\nexperience of presentation; and for networking and widening the circle of\ncontacts. Conferences are enriching and (mostly) fun. However, after 2020,\nconferences will never be the same again! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The coronavirus pandemic struck Europe just ahead of the\nstart of the main annual conference season and had an immediate effect.\nNational lockdowns and travel bans resulted in postponement or even outright\ncancellation of most, if not all, conferences in Europe and North America. With\nthe realisation that the situation would not be changing quickly, organisers\nadapted to making online offerings of webinars and by the summer, several entire\nconferences were being offered virtually. Some of these were offered live,\nothers were pre-recorded, and various formats were used to engage the audience.\nOrganisers, speakers and delegates quickly adapted to the virtual world with\nnew ways of doing things and increasingly sophisticated events have been held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving forward, many conferences for 2021 are already\nplanned to be offered entirely online and some organisers are talking about\nfuture conferences being a blend of virtual and face-to-face; just today I was\ninvolved in a discussion about a major international conference to be held in\n2025 where the organisers are already planning this blended approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The advantages of webinars and virtual symposia and\nconferences are many. Firstly, a programme can be arranged that may be far more\nattractive than a face-to-face offering. This is because there is no cost\nattached to the speakers and so the programme can attract many speakers from\nall around the globe and because busy researchers, who may not normally be\navailable or willing to take the time to travel, can participate. I experienced\nthis recently. A few weeks ago, the Italian Nutrition Society hosted a one-day\nvirtual conference on the Mediterranean Diet; amongst the thirteen speakers\nonly five were Italian and speakers from several other European countries and\nfrom the US and Brazil were included. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secondly, the audience can be much larger than the\ntraditional conference because the event is available to anyone who wishes to\nsign up, irrespective of their location and their ability to travel. Again, I\nhave experienced this many times this year. In May, I spoke in a webinar that\nattracted a truly international audience of almost 2,000 delegates. The Italian\nconference I mentioned above, attracted around 1,200 delegates; in normal times\nsuch a conference would attract a few hundred delegates. Last week the annual\nBritish Nutrition Foundation Day, normally held in London with 100 to 200\ndelegates, attracted a global audience of 1,650. Thus, virtual conferences\nenable an enormous global reach, engaging new participants and enhancing\nvisibility of speakers and their science. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirdly, virtual conferences are cheaper to run: no\nconference venues to hire, no supporting staff to pay, no invited speakers\nrequiring travel and hotel expenses to be covered, no catering costs etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, virtual conferences are so much better for the\nenvironment. These are the reasons why virtual is here to stay: more attractive\nprogrammes, easier access, bigger audiences, less cost and less harm to the\nenvironment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can there be a downside?<\/strong> Many academic societies derive significant income from\nhosting conferences and virtual offerings diminish the possibilities for income\ngeneration; registration fees are less expensive but as mentioned previously\ndelegate numbers may be significantly greater and the actual cost of running a\nconference is also much reduced. There are also new means of generating income\nsuch as pay-for-view of recorded sessions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps virtual or blended conferences may actually make\nmore money for academic societies than traditional conferences. However, it is\nclear that local economies would be affected by having fewer \u201cold style\u201d\nconferences, especially in those towns and cities that have established\nthemselves as conference venues. In addition to the venues themselves, hotels,\nrestaurants, local tourist sites as well as the travel industry seem likely to\nbe big losers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But I do not think all of this will be lost \u2026 Our need for genuine\nsocial contact, for the sort of discussion not easily possible on virtual platforms,\nfor chance meetings in a conference centre foyer or a hotel lift, for early\ncareer researchers to actually explain their data to their peers and to the\nmore established researchers, and for different cultural experiences creates a\ndemand for the essence of the face-to-face conference to re-emerge. I do look\nforward to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conferences are invaluable experiences for updating knowledge; for hearing from (and maybe even meeting) important figures in the field; for sharing new science with peers, getting feedback and gaining experience of presentation; and for networking and widening the circle of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3796,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,9,2,15,22,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-enterprise","category-international","category-professional","category-professor-philip-calder","category-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2017\/01\/Professor-Philip-Calder.jpg?fit=240%2C260&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8r5I4-b6","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3796"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Yes!! Virtual conferences mean loss of social and networking opportunities and limit the research and education benefits that come from those, although some of the more sophisticated meetings now being offered are including such possibilities, although I did find a virtual cocktail reception sitting in my study at home still staring at my laptop screen whilst holding myself-made G&T bizarre and not especially enjoyable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n