Conferences can help deepen professional relationships and connections. Interactive workshops are another benefit of conference attendance. Many science conferences offer workshops that are essentially mini-classes where delegates learn new skills and how to use new technology Harrison, Attendees may not have time and resources to take lengthy courses, and online courses may not be available or effective for all types of learners.
Workshops taken in conjunction with conference attendance allow delegates to learn new statistics programs, mapping programs, remote sensing skills, modeling software, and communications tools, to name a few. Interactive workshops can substantially advance research, projects, and careers. Some workshops even teach skills that can be used to have direct impact, such as marine mammal rescue courses.
Many times, techniques and projects that did not work out as planned are not published in scientific literature. Speaking to other researchers personally at conferences is where these conversations of failed attempts occur.
Learning what has not worked for other researchers can help scientists save precious resources, including time and money. These conversations can also help researchers redesign unsuccessful projects. Learning from the personal mistakes and missteps of others is an incredible resource, individually and collectively. Moreover, conference presentations are considered necessary for a career in the sciences. A traditional means of presenting hypotheses, research results, and newly developed theories, universities require or reward students and professors who present in-person at scientific conferences.
Presenting at an exclusively online meeting does not carry the same weight or prestige. In many cases, conference presentations are necessary to keep university positions or advance academic careers.
In addition to individual benefits, non-governmental organizations NGO can also garner much-needed support by presenting and attending conferences. Online, non-profit charities and NGOs compete against a vast array of other organizations. It can be difficult to gather supporters through the daily background noise of online information.
Conferences are an unequivocal means to meet people crucial to furthering organizations. In-person representation makes a greater impression on potential supporters, similar to the effects for individual attendees previously discussed. Increased support from conference attendees leads to increased online chatter, which can have exponential results. More support means more funding and increased real-world impacts made by NGOs.
Conferences also allow for exchanges across universities. Multi-university collaborations can be difficult, but conferences provide the interface for this to transpire. Combining resources and experiences can not only further specific research efforts, but also science in general.
Emails are not always effective for starting collaborations, and researching potential universities for partnerships takes time. Being in the same place as representatives from other universities accelerates the process and leads to real results.
New research stations and enterprises have been established by multiple universities pooling resources as a result of meeting at conferences. For certain conferences, registration fees help to financially support other initiatives of non-profits. Conferences can be a fundraiser for projects and grants that provide direct backing for environmental issues and endeavors.
Funds may also support other branches of an organization. For example, some registration fees received at a large international conference may be used to support research projects in underrepresented regions, as is done with some of the fees collected at IMCCs by the SCB Marine Section.
These regions may be comprised of developing countries with limited resources but ample biodiversity. Many science conferences, especially those concerning environmental issues, are increasingly taking steps to monitor Hischier and Hilty, and counterbalance the environmental impacts of conference travel Parsons, Additionally, conferences are now frequently offering or mandating the collection of required or optional carbon offset fees to help ameliorate the negative environmental effects of conference travel.
Carbon offset fees fund environmental projects, such as native tree planting and wildlife conservation. Although technology has advanced to levels once thought of as unattainable, these tools should supplement conferences, not replace face-to-face interactions.
Fraser et al. These have been investigated by IMCC delegates in discussion sessions at OceansOnline, an affiliate conference of IMCC4, with a result of organizers subsequently looking to offer telepresence as an option for the forthcoming 5th International Marine Conservation Congress Thaler, Yet, Fraser et al. Psychology, management, and communications studies have shown that information exchange, collaboration, and networking multiply during face-to-face meetings Duffy and McEuen, Effective collaborations require understanding the nuances of collaborators—nuances that cannot be perceived virtually.
Physically gathering people with different backgrounds and expertise may be difficult on a regular basis, but large conferences allow for this to happen.
Suggestions that a number of regional meetings could replace global meetings, providing the same face-to-face benefits while reducing travel-associated carbon emissions Smythe, , may well be appropriate in some cases. However, history has shown that regional conferences provide a different face-to-face knowledge sharing experience to global meetings, capture few non-regional issues, and lack the scope to address global problems like those typical of marine conservation Craggs and Mahony, For large-scale environmental efforts to be successful, multidisciplinary endeavors and collaborations across regions are crucial.
Recent thinking associated with delegate carbon footprints is, anyway, beginning to ask whether groups like scientists are becoming a bit over-pious with refusals to travel.
Brett Favaro, personal communication. If their non-attendance is impeding career-advancing opportunities and important knowledge sharing, they may be slowing the development and advance of the marine conservation discipline to the detriment of ocean health.
Accepted norms for scientists should allow the most effective pursuit of goals, such as those for marine conservation. IMCC organizers have already implemented the net-benefit approach by reforming their organizing approach to reduce carbon emissions, running in-situ applied workshops to improve conservation practitioners' skills, integrating outreach activities in the conference host city e.
Although conference travel can have negative environmental impacts, the environmental benefits achieved by increased conference participation surely outweigh the travel factor.
Moreover, conference organizers can take steps to reduce their environmental impacts by picking a venue that uses sustainable practices Draper et al. Other ways in which the impacts of delegate travel can be offset or minimized include Parsons, :. Have delegates order hard copies of programs in advance, to minimize printing costs and paper wastage. The educational and practical, real world benefits provided by a conference delegate might have a major and long lasting benefit to the local host community and their environment.
Conferences are so much more than simply listening to talks. In light of recent evidence that conference attendances are dropping Stevens et al. We have added a starter list of suggestions for maximizing the benefit from conferences, in order that an even more compelling case can be made for in-person attendance see Table S3. Agencies, NGOs, and universities clearly benefit by sending people to conferences, even if attendees do not have an oral presentation.
A conference is not just an avenue for a scientist to present their research to the wider community, but it can be an important venue for brainstorming, networking and making vital connections that can lead to new initiatives, papers, and funding, in a way that virtual, online meetings cannot.
The research qualified for exemption for an IRB process as it fully met exemption criteria under Category 2 of the U.
Qualification for this exemption was achieved as the survey procedures ensured i information was obtained and recorded in such a manner that human subjects could not be identified, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects; and ii because any disclosure of the human subjects' responses outside the research could not reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects' financial standing, employability, or reputation.
At point-of-taking, survey respondents were informed of the purpose of the IMCC feedback surveys and given the assurance that their answers were confidential. Precise personal identifiers e. Written consent could not be obtained as the research instrument was an online survey. Consent was, therefore, obtained by virtue of survey completion.
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Abelson, J. Deliberations about deliberative methods: issues in the design and evaluation of public participation processes. Internationally, Anglican churches have played a key role in consoling the bereaved, coordinating front line responses to the pandemic and finding new ways to worship and be community virtually.
Alongside this, a wide range of communion and world affairs must be explored, including topics of mission and evangelism, climate change, gender justice, modern day slavery, peace and reconciliation and more. The role and ethics of science and biotechnology and its growing impact on our world will be important in our discussions.
As the fifteenth Lambeth Conference prepares to meet, it joins the ranks of other Lambeth Conferences that have met after times of global crisis. The conference met in the wake of the Great Depression. The moment for a strategic reorientation came in the autumn of The developments mentioned led to the conclusion that publishing about the organization of content events, events that matter most dear to us, and that we collected the collected by us.
We celebrated this renewed focus with a new name: Conference Matters. Because conferences do matter! Our youth years were accomplished under the familiar wings of Hollandia Publishing, part of the Hollandia Printing Group. This printing company did not survive the shake-out during the crisis years, after which we found shelter in at Het Portaal Uitgevers, the team behind PromZ, the information source for everyone professionally involved in promotional marketing, promotional products and business gifts.
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