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Why do researchers attend academic conferences?

Some budding researchers who have never attended an academic conference may think that the only objective behind attending an academic conference is to present your research study. However, an academic conference is an excellent platform to present your work to eminent professors in your field and to engage the peer review committee in a quick question-answer session.

All these sessions are ultimately aimed at strengthening the quality of your work. Paper presentations are just one aspect of academic conferences. In this article, we explore the many reasons for which researchers attend academic conferences. In general, most research papers are revised multiple times before being published in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Most researchers have to wait for a couple of months to see their final draft getting published in the journal. However, academic conferences readily accept research work that presents recent findings in their field of study. In other words, academic conferences showcase emerging trends in a field of study.

An academic conference is information-driven, with many presentations from noted keynote speakers. A researcher can get enough information to decide whether a particular speaker has expertise in their field of study. Another reasons for attending an academic conference is the possibility of connecting with researchers living in different regions and countries.

Presentations act as advertising billboards, presenting innovative ideas. Normally, most billboards are used to attract the attention of consumers. Similarly, academic conferences are wonderful events to catch up in a conversation with esteemed researchers out of your lab.

Most conference attendees can continue their exchange of information even after the conference, all thanks to the internet and email. There are many high-quality papers presented at conferences, and you do not want to miss a golden chance of knowing them.

Most conference delegates can arrange a meeting with keynote speakers with the help of the conference app. Networking is the keyword here and academic conference create an environment conducive to international collaborations. Besides technical presentations, academic conferences also serve as social networks for budding researchers who can gain a fresh perspective on their career and research work.

At academic conferences, participants are mostly served great meals and drinks. While enjoying this session of eating and drinking, many young researchers can get themselves acquainted with speakers who had the greatest impact on them. Many academic conferences also have introduction sessions for young doctoral students who have freshly graduated from university.

Most academic conference organizers publish a set of proceedings, which is nothing but a book of abstracts submitted at the conference. This booklet is an official souvenir of the conference, and all participants receive this document at the end of the conference. The conference proceedings may be provided as a hard copy or in the digital format.

All the abstracts reflect the latest research work in your field of study. You can read through these abstracts after reaching home, because they are nothing less than a treasure trove. You may then introduce yourself to other researchers who attended the conference and make a long-lasting network of collaborations.

Although academic conference presentations can add a sparkle to your resume, everything comes with strings attached. Registration fees, traveling expenses, accommodation, visa fees are some of the factors to be considered before attending a conference. In general, most conferences are subsidized for graduate students and researchers from developing countries.

Many universities also sponsor academic conferences, which significantly brings down the cost of attending such conferences. Some researchers who are just embarking on their research journey may also receive travel grants for international events.

To avail of subsidies and grants, researchers should never hesitate in contacting the conference organizers directly. Moreover, they can avail of university grants by contacting their program coordinator, research supervisor, or HR department of their institution.

Attending an academic conference is a golden opportunity and paucity of funds should never be the reasons for not attending it. Some students are often hired by conference organizers to work as volunteers at the conference. So, these volunteers can attend such conference without paying registration fees.

Most conference organizers do not readily promote grants on their website, so asking them directly is the best chance of knowing about grants. Graduate students and young researchers should socialize through conference app and get to know about researchers living near the venue of the conference.

They can then enquire if these researchers are willing to accommodate them at their houses or about researchers willing to share accommodation rooms at hotels. Thus, the cost of accommodation can be covered with these initiatives.

Besides preparing presentations and posters, young researchers intending to attend an academic conference for the first time must spend some time in doing pre-conference prep. This will certainly boost your morale and remove your fear of conversing with unknown researchers.

Harrisco is a top academic editing company in Seoul, South Korea. It has been organizing academic conferences on various topics since 2017. Currently, it is busy organizing the 3rd IKNC conference for Korean researchers in August.

A strict review committee will monitor the quality of papers presented at the conference. All conference abstracts will be published as a conference proceeding by Harrisco. A few selected papers of high-quality would be published completely in SCI journals.

The names of these SCI journals are displayed on the conference website www.iknc.org. The last date for Abstract submission is 15th July 2020. The high-quality papers selected for publication will be first polished by native English editors of Harrisco, a top brand in the field of academic publishing.

 

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The business of academic conferences: a complete overview

An academic conference is basically a gathering of researchers in the same field of study. In this gathering, they present the findings of their research study and get themselves updated with the latest innovations in their field. An academic conference has different names, such as academic congress, research conference, academic meeting, and symposium.

These conferences are usually organized by companies or academic societies of independent scholars. However, every academic conference is monitored by a scientific committee that reviews the quality of papers submitted to the conference.

Academic conferences are not just restricted to people in academia. They can be either small meetings held for local scientists or large global events that include the participation of thousands of international scientists.

An academic conference may include highly-specific topics restricted to a particular discipline or it may be an interdisciplinary conference that presents perspectives of academics from related fields. Industry professionals from different disciplines may also be invited to attend academic conferences.

The content of most academic conferences is intellectually stimulating, so researchers should always make it a point to attend such conferences. Young researchers get acquainted with research happening outside their field of study.

It is an excellent platform to socialize with researchers outside your field of specialization. Thus, you can build long-lasting relations with new researchers and increase the possibility of international collaborations. However, many people still do not know the list of benefits an academic conference can offer.

Most people working in industry attend professional conferences to get acquainted with industry trends and market summary. On the other hand, academic conferences are based on a totally different wavelength.

Usually, academic conferences are filled with abstract presentation, keynote speakers, innovative research studies, and poster presentations. To ease the anxiety of researchers attending an academic conference for the first time, let’s dig into the world of academic conferences.

How is an academic conference conducted for researchers?

Because academic conferences serve as a platform for presenting the most innovative research studies in a field of study, academics come across latest developments in their field of specialization. This means that participants who attend such conference also get a chance to present their work to a wider audience.

An academic conference is lined up with a list of short presentations that captivate the attention of the audience. In some large conference, organizers may arrange “parallel sessions” that run simultaneously through the conference.

With the evolution of academic publishing, the format of academic conferences has also undergone transformations. Because industrial conferences have gained immense popularity among professionals, academic conference has also become a bit more flexible in their selection process.

Now-a-days, academic conference have also become interactive and include debate sessions to engage the attention of participants. Nevertheless, most academic presentations can be classified in the following categories:

Plenary sessions: In most academic conferences, papers are accepted from parallel streams. However, all participants are requested to attend the plenary session. A plenary session includes a keynote session, different types of presentations or panels.

Keynote session: Most delegates are attracted to the keynote session of an academic conference. In this session, keynote speakers present the scope of the entire conference and encourage the collective endeavor of academics participating in the conference.

Panel sessions: A particular topic is selected for debate and discussion in the academic conference. Panelist are invited to moderate the debate of multiple researchers. They can issue statements or simply answer questions put forth from the audience. The goal of panel sessions is to facilitate the exchange of viewpoints presented by experts on a particular topic.

Oral sessions: In this session, several presenters give a small talk on their selected papers, which are based on a common theme. Every presenter has to complete their speech within a short duration of time, usually 10 minutes. After each presentation, additional time is allotted for a quick question-and-answer session with the audience.

Poster sessions: Physical or digital posters of researchers are usually displayed in the conference hall filled with academics. These posters are displayed for a long time and at the same platform in the conference room. There are no time constraints observed for poster sessions. The conference delegates take their own time to peruse through different posters and they then discuss the presented research work with the authors.

Workshops: Most academic conferences have lectures, tutorials, and workshops on following subjects: science communication, how ESL researchers can get their work published in international English journals. Most graduate students and young researchers benefit a lot by attending such workshops. This is because they are in the nascent stage of their research careers and are not really adept at scientific writing. By attending such writing workshops, they can really understand the complexity of academic publishing.

Harrisco is a top academic editing company that organizes academic conferences on various topics. All conference papers are published as proceedings by Harrisco. A few of the selected papers of high-quality are published completed in our selected SCI journals. Harrisco has been in the business of academic conference since 2017. Its latest conference is scheduled to be held in August. The conference website is www.iknc.org

The reviewing committee has strict selection standards to ensure that our conference are aimed at the scientific community of international repute. Harrisco edits all selected papers prior to publication in academic journals. The academic conferences have prestigious keynote speakers from reputed institutions across the world.  Come, let’s explore the world of academic conferences. Let’s build the future of our budding researchers.

 

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How can researchers benefit from academic conferences

Academic conferences often help researchers in boosting the prospects of their career. Well, conferences often serve as a platform to showcase talent of the researcher community. There are posters, presentations of hundreds of researchers who have gathered under one roof. With a lot of stress on innovation and impact, young budding researchers can definitely learn a lot at academic conferences. Here, we offer ten tips on how researchers can maximize their benefits through academic conferences.

1) Plan ahead of the academic conference: Researchers should take a look at the abstracts ahead of the conference. This will certainly help them in managing their schedule, especially when they are hard-pressed for time.

2) Spend time with researchers outside your network: Although it is nice to spend time with scientists at the lab, researchers should always make an effort to reach out to researchers who are outside their network. This can help them foster long-lasting relations for foreign collaborations. This may be difficult for researchers who are in their early stage of career, like first year graduate students. For example, students can find it easy to connect with a professor who appears at the same academic conference.

3) Request the principal investigator for introduction to their colleagues: Students in grad school and young post-doc researchers may not really be comfortable to start a conversation with senior colleagues in their research network. In such cases, the help offered by principal investigators would be really useful as they are indeed aware of your research interests and work. They can introduce you to senior colleagues working in your related field of study.

4) Always keep a copy of the conference schedule with you: Researchers should always avoid attending conferences behind the schedule. Arriving late at a conference means that you miss important presentations and talks of keynote speakers. Having a copy of the conference schedule in our pocket definitely helps!

5) Network and learn during the conference: One of the best things that a conference offers is the opportunity to build relationships professionally. While working in a laboratory, researchers can easily build relationships through daily conversations. However, the scope of your professional network need not be limited to a lab. At a conference, you can simply introduce yourself to strangers sitting next to you. Remember having small conversations with researchers from different cities and countries can definitely take you miles in your career.

6) Enquire about the work of other researchers: Many presentations are shown in academic conferences. There may be instances where these presenters could be sitting just beside you in the conference. Do not miss an opportunity to strike a conversation about their work. Remember that your first question should always be related to their presentation. There’s no need to blabber about your own work. It will surely show up in the course of the conversation.

7) Researchers should take notes in the conference: There will be many opportunities to listen to conversations and sessions at conferences. Although most researchers are brilliant and have a sharp memory, it is easy to forget the nuances of the exchanged conversations.

Therefore, we recommend researchers to make small notes through their day as they are busy listening to talks and engaged in serious conversations with people in their new professional network. By taking notes, researchers can retain their level of alertness throughout the conference.

8) Share contact information with other researchers: While you try to connect with someone having the same research interest, it is always preferable to share your contact information with them and develop a long-lasting relationship.

9) Act on what you learned in the conference: Researchers will definitely some time to process the information received in a conference. This is because a lot of innovative ideas and concepts are impinged into your mind within a short span of one day. To avoid an overload of information, researchers should refer to the short notes that they compiled during the conference. They can then recollect the ideas meant to be implemented in their laboratory.

10) Establish contact with new connections: Although a researcher makes many connections with new people at a conference, it is always important to reach out to them after the conference is over and you are back to working at the lab. One of the easiest ways to reconnect with new people would be through email. A relationship can be built up simply by having a conversation through email. Remember, recommendations given by these connections would be useful in gaining a new research grant or to overcome the hurdles faced in your current research study.

So, are you ready to face the next academic conference?

Now that we have presented you a blue-print for being successful at an academic conference, do you really feel ready to take up the challenge of the next conference? Conference planning and organization involves a lot of effort, both in terms of money and time. These two things are precious to any researcher. By following our strategy, researchers can really make conferences beneficial to their career and laboratory.

Nevertheless, researchers should always plan ahead of the conference and should attend only those that add value to their research. They should what to really expect in an academic conference. With this approach, researchers can gain useful opportunities and connections meant to make a breakthrough in their work and life.

Harrisco is a top academic editing company that is organizing the 3rd IKNC conference in August. The conference is based on various topics of humanities, civilization, public health, nanotechnology, and chemistry. Take a look at the conference website www.iknc.org. The last date for Abstract submission is 10th July. The conference would be held in South Korea, but overseas researchers can attend the conference virtually through our webinar. We fully understand the travel restrictions imposed by COVID-19.