TY - JOUR
T1 - Conference demographics and footprint changed by virtual platforms
AU - Skiles, Matthew
AU - Yang, Euijin
AU - Reshef, Orad
AU - Muñoz, Diego Robalino
AU - Cintron, Diana
AU - Lind, Mary Laura
AU - Rush, Alexander
AU - Calleja, Patricia Perez
AU - Nerenberg, Robert
AU - Armani, Andrea
AU - M. Faust, Kasey
AU - Kumar, Manish
N1 - Funding Information:
We acknowledge G. Ragusa’s contribution to designing the pre-and postsurveys used for the POM1 and 2 conferences. The work in this paper was supported by the NSF (award no. CBET 2029219 and CBET 1946392). We gratefully acknowledge access to data and consultation support provided by NAMS, ICLR, POM and IWA meeting leadership. K. Marvel’s input on AAS data and trends and his role in providing access to AAS meeting data is also acknowledged. This material is based on work supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant no. DGE-1610403. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Funding Information:
We acknowledge G. Ragusa?s contribution to designing the pre- and postsurveys used for the POM?1 and 2 conferences. The work in this paper was supported by the NSF (award no. CBET 2029219 and CBET 1946392). We gratefully acknowledge access to data and consultation support provided by NAMS, ICLR, POM and IWA meeting leadership. K. Marvel?s input on AAS data and trends and his role in providing access to AAS meeting data is also acknowledged. This material is based on work supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under grant no. DGE-1610403. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Conferences disseminate research, grow professional networks and train employees. Unfortunately, they also contribute to climate change and present barriers to achieving a socially sustainable work environment. Here, we analyse the recent impact of transforming in-person conferences into virtual conferences on improving diversity, equity and inclusion in science and engineering conferences. Factors including cost, gender, career stage and geographic location were evaluated. Virtual conferences demonstrated a clearly discernable and, in some cases, orders of magnitude improvement across nearly all metrics. On the basis of participant survey results, this improvement may be attributed to a combination of reduced financial and personal-life burdens. However, despite this clear impact, further development of virtual networking features and poster sessions is necessary to achieve widespread adoption and acceptance of this new format.
AB - Conferences disseminate research, grow professional networks and train employees. Unfortunately, they also contribute to climate change and present barriers to achieving a socially sustainable work environment. Here, we analyse the recent impact of transforming in-person conferences into virtual conferences on improving diversity, equity and inclusion in science and engineering conferences. Factors including cost, gender, career stage and geographic location were evaluated. Virtual conferences demonstrated a clearly discernable and, in some cases, orders of magnitude improvement across nearly all metrics. On the basis of participant survey results, this improvement may be attributed to a combination of reduced financial and personal-life burdens. However, despite this clear impact, further development of virtual networking features and poster sessions is necessary to achieve widespread adoption and acceptance of this new format.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41893-021-00823-2
DO - 10.1038/s41893-021-00823-2
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:85121340680
SN - 2398-9629
VL - 5
SP - 149
EP - 156
JO - Nature Sustainability
JF - Nature Sustainability
IS - 2
ER -