ABSTRACT
Academic conferences are important places for exchanging scientific knowledge and building professional networks, but they also contribute to climate change through emissions caused by air travel. Hence, more sustainable conferences are needed. The unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to develop more sustainable conferences by shifting to effective virtual communication. Studies have demonstrated that virtual conferences are often more sustainable, but also more inclusive than in-person conferences, but that they – like in-person conferences – also have drawbacks. Researchers perceive ineffective networking due to a lack of social interaction as the biggest disadvantage of current virtual conferences. This study aims to examine researchers' experiences with virtual conferences by investigating the factors that influence networking efficacy during virtual conferences. To do so, 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with virtual conference organisers and attendees from various career stages, countries and scientific fields. The input-process-output framework was used to structure the factors that participants mentioned as facilitating or constraining networking. The results demonstrate conference organisers' important role in thinking carefully about technical equipment that facilitates networking and specifically planning virtual conferences' networking sessions. This study is the first to structure factors that influence networking efficacy systematically during virtual conferences. The results of this study revealed that best practice examples of effective virtual networking exist, thus providing a starting point for the shift from academic air travel to more sustainable research exchange.
ABSTRACT
At the 2019 and 2021 International Conference on Environmental Psychology, discussions were held on the future of conferences in light of the enormous greenhouse gas emissions and inequities associated with conference travel. In this manuscript, we provide an early career researcher (ECR) perspective on this discussion. We argue that travel-intensive conference practices damage both the environment and our credibility as a discipline, conflict with the intrinsic values and motivations of our discipline, and are inequitable. As such, they must change. This change can be achieved by moving toward virtual and hybrid conferences, which can reduce researchers' carbon footprints and promote equity, if employed carefully and with informal exchange as a priority. By acting collectively and with the support of institutional change, we can adapt conference travel norms in our field. To investigate whether our arguments correspond to views in the wider community of ECRs within environmental psychology, we conducted a community case study. By leveraging our professional networks and directly contacting researchers in countries underrepresented in those networks, we recruited 117 ECRs in 32 countries for an online survey in February 2022. The surveyed ECRs supported a change in conference travel practices, including flying less, and perceived the number of researchers wanting to reduce their travel emissions to be growing. Thirteen percent of respondents had even considered leaving academia due to travel requirements. Concerning alternative conference formats, a mixed picture emerged. Overall, participants had slightly negative evaluations of virtual conferences, but expected them to improve within the next 5 years. However, ECRs with health issues, facing visa challenges, on low funding, living in remote areas, with caretaking obligations or facing travel restrictions due to COVID-19 expected a switch toward virtual or hybrid conferences to positively affect their groups. Participants were divided about their ability to build professional relationships in virtual settings, but believed that maintaining relationships virtually is possible. We conclude by arguing that the concerns of ECRs in environmental psychology about current and alternative conference practices must be taken seriously. We call on our community to work on collective solutions and less travel-intensive conference designs using participatory methods.