Many institutions will only fund conference attendance (travel, fees & accommodation) if you can show it is worthwhile you attending. Oral presentation is normally a given (good PR for you and the institution). Presenting a poster is viewed as a chance to present a topic overview & network with like-minded people (though the actual exposure is questionable). Running a workshop gets you involved with people in your field & stimulates debate. You can also bill funding to a linked project budget.
Guest lectures and oral papers however are limited & draw fierce competition, so your chances of acceptance are reduced. So, my question is where does your funding normally come from & how do you justify your cause ?
From an institutional point of view, it's the conference paper presentation that should be given priority. Reason is that these papers can then be subsequently turned into full papers and thus benefiting the institution's research publication output count.
So Benjamin, would you only give / fund an oral paper presentation as they are 'top of the list' ? Suppose somebody (or you) wants to attend a conference - would you give / expect funding for other forms of presentation (e.g. those above) or even consider funding, simply because somebody says they want to attend? Also (on a slightly different track) - what form of feedback or demonstration of benefit do you or your institution demand on a persons return (i.e. structured conference report )? We take for granted the gain to be had from oral paper delivery, but how about presenting a poster or simply networking? Do you think structured feedback would help wider knowledge dissemination within the institution or future funding decisions?
Lots of questions but hopefully peoples answers may give a useful insight to attending and funding conferences :-)
Se i would like to put up a point here.
Never do anything just for the sake of doing: Be it any thing
Regards to financial support to an academic/other researcher: I say one interested must be surely supported. And this will be based on the probability of presentation (paper/poster/lecture). On how many times, International/national/state/local it must be decided by the institution.
I definitely agree that there is a developmental benefit to be derived from attending conferences, be it a small or big conference, local or international.
However, administratively, when you have scarce resources to be allocated to many applicants, you would need to prioritise.
That's why in most institutions, there are separate pools of money set aside for funding postgraduate students to attend conference and staff/researchers. For postgraduate students, I would say its the developmental aspect that is more important as they go out to meet people whose work they have read and to gain a feel of being part of a community of scholars.
As for staff and reserachers, it's natural to expect higher priority to be accorded to those who present (whether paper, oral or poster) or having a major role as convenor, chair, panel discussant etc. In today's climate of fund tightening, it has become more difficult to expect approval for attendance just for the sake of attending.
Ramana - I agree with the idea of not doing something just for the sake of it, but sometimes, the justification may not be suitable to gain funding. This might be something like wanting to attend a small meeting (which the institution might not feel has enough exposure), or presenting a poster at a big event (where it is genuinely hit & miss whether your work will get any attention). I can see what the attendee gets, but how about the person that pays for it? I wonder if we could make conference attendance (& presentation) more tangible by lookijng for ways to increase people's exposure, and also by making the work more readily available to those outside the conference.
@Hassan Amra: how does any of your self-promotional post contribute to this discussion? Read the question!
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Education
- Higher Education
- Conferences