Trends in scientific communication and continuing education in Forensic Sciences during the pandemic of COVID-19: The role of virtual conferences and experiences of the 2020 Online Congress of the Brazilian Society of Forensic Sciences

ABSTRACT

The pandemic of COVID-19 has changed the landscape of scientific meetings in 2020, leading to the cancellation, postponement or change of format in many conferences. The latter type of change involved the conversion of in-person to virtual meetings. The decision as well as the logistics involved in these changes are not easy. However, the benefits and gains provided by virtual scientific conferences through 2020 in many disciplines have shown that this format can overcome many challenges and promote the diversity in Forensic Sciences conferences as well. In this paper, the benefits and potentials of virtual conferences in Forensic Sciences, including Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology, in promoting scientific communication, accessibility, diversity and continuing education is discussed, in the light of the experiences of the Brazilian Society of Forensic Sciences with the 2020 SBCF Online Congress. The experiences obtained with virtual scientific meetings in 2020 have shown that these formats are very promising and important, and should be increasingly incorporated in future scientific meetings, as an alternative strategy to promote scientific communication, reaching large audiences, without travel limitations and at reduced costs for the attendees. However, this approach should not replace in-person meetings, which have many benefits that cannot be replaced by virtual meetings. Therefore, the combination of online and in-person meetings can be very useful strategies.