- #Primary issues medical conferences 2016 registration
- #Primary issues medical conferences 2016 professional
This is not the case when it comes to fake conferences, which unfortunately often look and sound superficially like standard academic conferences. In short, such meetings are organized to bring together scholars whose work overlaps and to create an environment for idea-sharing and research development. Researchers and others in academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations can mingle and share ideas during formal sessions and gatherings, in hallways and lobbies between sessions, over dinner, or, more recently, in online discussions hosted as part of remote or hybrid conferences. Conferences also present unique opportunities to network with like-minded people who may later become colleagues, research partners, employers, or funders.
#Primary issues medical conferences 2016 professional
For early-career researchers especially, these events are an important way to build CVs, develop professional brands, share research, and gather valuable feedback. Sign up now The Growing Problem of Fake Conferencesįor most academics, attending scholarly conferences is a conventional part of advancing one’s research and growing one’s career. Get the most fascinating science news stories of the week in your inbox every Friday. More important, however, is that these activities harm researchers who fall prey to them, and they threaten to damage public perceptions of and trust in science. Admittedly, we have a vested interest in the success of legitimate conferences, with whom we do business, so the growth of predatory conferences has repercussions for us as a company.
#Primary issues medical conferences 2016 registration
Our company provides technology and software solutions that help scientific conference organizers manage elements of their event planning, from participant registration to the peer review process. My colleagues and I have witnessed the growing trend of predatory conferences both firsthand and through discussions with clients. Unfortunately, it is no longer safe to assume that a conference is genuine without doing proper background research into its organizers and sponsors. More recently, there has been an increase in the occurrence of similarly predatory (or “fake”) conferences across numerous scientific disciplines, including in the Earth and space sciences. These journals offer researchers easy access to publishing, for a fee, while dismissing typical quality controls like rigorous peer review or checks for plagiarism. However, predatory journals began to appear in the early 2000s and have become more common over the past decade, signaling that there are unscrupulous organizations willing to push scientific integrity aside for the sake of profit. These expectations and assumptions about the legitimacy of publications and events organized by well-intentioned, competent groups with genuine interest in advancing science were long safe. Meanwhile, media outlets that report on conferences expect that not only do the proceedings offer fresh insights on new research, but also the research has been vetted for its methodology and significance. Scientists who present their work at these conferences similarly trust that doing so enhances, rather than detracts from, their professional reputations. When researchers attend a conference or cite a paper, they do so with confidence that these events and publications are operated in good faith and have undergone a trusted review process to ensure, as much as possible, that the content they distribute is sound. Thorough evaluation and expert peer review of research are at the core of academic and scientific integrity.