If you work in research, nowadays you can be sure to get swamped with "conference invitation" e-mails. A large part of these is, in effect, spam - attempts to get you (or your funders) to pay for meetings of highly questionable scientific worth.
So, let's introduce a rating scale for scientific (or not) conferences, from 0 to 10. All examples have really happened.
0 - Trash
- You ask a friend who is listed in the organizing committee, and get the response "what conference?"
- Advertising mostly mentions the location (Maledives!) and the proceedings (Indexed by Google Scholar!)
- You arrive at the location and there is no conference.
- If there is one, you can barely find it because it's in the back room of some hotel conference center.
- Instead of a conference organizer's desk you encounter a pile of badges and participation certificates.
- The "hybrid session" consists of you, the AV technician, and some poor guy on zoom talking to a non-existing audience.
- There's a talk on the "memory of water".
- A remote talk is given by someone in a car while driving.
- There are less posters than talks.
3 - We do this for the money, but hey, we're trying!
- The conference organizing committee contains the one or two well-known professors who are in every organizing committee. Everyone else is from countries you've never heard of.
- The meeting has taken place before and the website is somewhat professional.
- The conference secretary is called Elsa, Belle, or Jasmine and sends you an e-mail every week, offering an invited talk for a "small reduction" of the conference fee (hint, the size of the reduction can be up to negotiation!)
- Between sign-up and actual conference date, the number of days and sessions mysteriously shrinks.
- The conference organizer's desk is handled by a bunch of undergrads who barely speak English and have no clue.
- The welcome address is skipped since the speaker doesn't turn up. Same for the chairman of the first session. After the first regular speaker starts their talk, the chairman hurries in - "sorry, sorry, I ended up at the wrong conference..."
- You meet a few colleagues from home who find the situation similarly amusing as you, and have a good time at lunch.
- Eventually things become somewhat more regular, and sessions and talks take place, but you have quite some doubts about the scientific quality of some of them.
- Focus? What focus?
6 - Yes I'm gonna establish a conference, mark my words!
- 5th or 6th installment of a conference series, typically by the same scientific organizer or organization.
- You find the conference without problems, and there is actually a well-organized conference desk. Maybe even the scientific organizer greets you in person.
- The location is only moderately flashy, function starts to gain over form.
- Most of the participants are from serious scientific institutions and present work that can be interesting.
- Main problem is still the focus - the topics are too broad, the number of participants too small, such that it's not so likely you will meet someone whose work is really relevant to your own.
- If the main organizer has a good hand, they will accumulate a circle of regular participants and the event will grow over time.
- Can, e.g., be a professor establishing an international conference on their topic in their home country...
- Typically 2-3 companies are present trying to sell their lab supplies.
9 - Congratulations, it's a great scientific conference
- Either wide focus and a huge number of participants, or narrow focus and a small number of participants
- Organized by a scientific society (DPG, EPS, APS, ...) or by a group of internationally well-known experts in one specific field
- True invited talks are comparatively rare, and come with (depending on the financial situation of the host) either no reduction of fees at all, or even funding of travel expenses.
- You know nearly everyone in the organizing committee, at least from their publications.
- Many more poster contributions than talks.
- You can be sure to meet many of your scientific colleagues.
- Large commercial presence of companies sponsoring the meeting and advertising their high-tech equipment.
10 - Summa cum laude
- Small meetings organized by few top experts of a research area, or (very rare) large meetings consisting of several such high-quality sessions in combination.
- Organized by top level scientists in the field worldwide
- Participation by invitation only, true selection of conference participants (more applicants than places)
- In some cases, even free participation and accommodation
- Recent examples: Gordon Research Conferences, Heraeus seminars, the QuantuMatter 2024, ...
