Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

# Conference demographics and footprint changed by virtual platforms

## Abstract

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.

## Main

Conferences fulfil a range of needs by facilitating dissemination of ideas, initiating collaborative relationships and providing education, training and career opportunities. Traditional in-person conferences (IPCs) have filled this role for centuries1 and these events cut across all sectors: academia, industry and government. However, this format has been criticized as outdated and detrimental to the environment2,3,4. More recently, emerging evidence is also connecting this modality to social sustainability issues as well, notably poor retention of a diverse workforce. In this context, the two dominant contributors are the intrinsic power-imbalance in the workplace and an imbalance in home-life responsibilities5,6.

Over the past two decades, the creation and sustainment of a diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) work environment in the scientific and engineering community has not kept pace with many other fields. In part, this can be attributed to career expectations revolving around conference travel and participation. Participation in conferences can be cost prohibitive for many, as the cumulative expenses can be thousands of US dollars per person. International travel creates additional barriers7 which are exacerbated by the frequent changes in document requirements and lengthy delays in obtaining visas. These financial and documentation barriers can also dissuade scientists that have difficulty securing funding to cover conference costs such as students, postdoctoral researchers or scientists from historically under-represented institutions. These factors can also exclude participants from countries that do not have very high research activity, such as nations that are not in the top ten research countries as defined by the Nature Index (NI; ref. 8), NI > 10.

However, even for those researchers who are able to travel, the time away from home necessitated by work-related travel is intrinsically exclusionary to care-givers, who are primarily women3,7,9. Yet, given how important conference attendance is to career advancement, this community is frequently faced with the decision of choosing between work and family. Lastly, despite conference organizers’ attempts to solve accessibility concerns of the disabled community, many conferences still fall short of providing an equitable experience.

The recent surge in virtual events is forcing the scientific community to re-evaluate its long-held position against virtual conferences (VCs). The initial anecdotal evidence indicated that VCs enabled a more diverse population to participate. But a quantitative analysis of the impact on DEI challenges has yet to be performed. Such analysis is critical to make decisions regarding the format of future events, potentially resulting in a paradigm shift in the field. Here, we evaluate several metrics, including cost, carbon footprint, impact of conference format and attendee demographics. We collected historical data from three IPCs based in the United States, of varying sizes and disciplines within science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These results were compared to the same three conferences after they transitioned to a VC format in 2020. These scientific conferences were among the early conferences to transition online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and were chosen to investigate the impact of an abrupt transition from historically IPCs to a new virtual format.

The historically IPCs-turned-VCs analysed here are the annual International Conferences on Learning Representations (ICLR), the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) conferences. Also analysed here are several conference series that were originally designed for the VC environment, including the Photonics Online Meetups (POM 1, January 2020; POM 2, June 2020) and the International Water Association (IWA) Biofilms conference. These conferences span five fields of science and engineering and range from small- to large-scale events. All have international audiences.

We focused our analysis on the environmental, social and economic costs of VCs versus IPCs and accompanying demographic impacts (global participation), participation from women, early career researchers and scientists from under-represented institutions. We also assessed the challenges and benefits of the VC format.

## Results

### Demographic impact

The elimination of the travel and cost burdens realized with the VC format resulted in a large increase in attendance at all events (Fig. 1). The increase in attendance was particularly pronounced for international attendees. We propose that this trend may be related to the substantial decrease in costs as compared to IPCs as described below.

### Gender make up of STEM researchers from conference attendee’s countries

Country-specific percentage of women data are taken from ‘female researchers as a percentage of total researchers (full-time equivalents)—natural sciences and engineering (subtotal)’ published as ref. 26 with the exception of the United States which is not included in that dataset. US percentage of women is derived from women as a percentage of MSc and PhD graduates employed in science and engineering occupations27. Overall percentage of women in STEM for the countries represented in the conference delegations was calculated with percentage values from each country represented at the conference, weighted by the number of attendees from each country.

### Reporting Summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

## Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study have been deposited on Github28 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5567764). Source data are provided with this paper.

## Code availability

The custom code used to process and analyse the data for this study has been deposited on Github28 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5567764).

## References

1. Reshef, O. et al. How to organize an online conference. Nat. Rev. Mater. 5, 253–256 (2020).

2. Yakar, D. & Kwee, T. C. Carbon footprint of the RSNA annual meeting. Eur. J. Radiol. 125, 5 (2020).

3. Parker, M. & Weik, E. Free spirits? The academic on the aeroplane. Manag. Learn. 45, 167–181 (2014).

4. Klöwer, M., Hopkins, D., Allen, M. & Higham, J. An analysis of ways to decarbonize conference travel after COVID-19. Nature 583, 356–359 (2020).

5. Hewlett, S. A. et al. The Athena factor: reversing the brain drain in science, engineering, and technology. Harv. Bus. Rev. Res. Rep. 10094, 1–100 (2008).

6. Simard, C., Henderson, A., Gilmartin, S., Schiebinger, L. & Whitney, T. Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology (Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, 2008).

7. Urry, J. Social networks, mobile lives and social inequalities. J. Transp. Geogr. 21, 24–30 (2012).

8. Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables (Springer Nature, 2020); https://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2020

9. Cohen, S. A. & Gossling, S. A darker side of hypermobility. Environ. Plan. A 47, 1661–1679 (2015).

10. Rogelj, J. et al. in IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (eds Masson-Delmotte, V. et al.) Ch. 2 (WMO, 2018).

11. Fisher, M. J. & Marshall, A. P. Understanding descriptive statistics. Aust. Crit. Care 22, 93–97 (2009).

12. Schaab, G., Adams, S. & Coetzee, S. Conveying map finesse: thematic map making essentials for today’s university students. J. Geogr. High. Educ. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2020.1850656 (2020)

13. Gender API (Gender-API.com, accessed 30 October 2020); https://gender-api.com

14. Accredited Postsecondary Minority Institutions (US Department of Education, accessed 30 October 2020); https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-minorityinst-list-tab.html

15. The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (Indiana Univ. School of Education, accessed 30 October 2020); https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2216%22%7D&start_page=standard.php&backurl=standard.php&limit=0,50

16. Facilitating Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions: Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) and Research Opportunity Awards (ROA) (United States National Science Foundation, accessed 30 October 2020); https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14579/nsf14579.htm

17. Doctorates Awarded, by State or Location, Broad Field of Study, and Sex of Doctorate Recipients: 2017 (United States National Science Foundation, 2018).

18. Doctorates Awarded, by State or Location, Broad Field of Study, and Sex of Doctorate Recipients: 2018 (United States National Science Foundation, 2019).

20. The myclimate Flight Emission Calculator (Foundation myclimate, accessed 30 October 2020); https://www.myclimate.org/

21. Chong, H. G. & Ricaurte, E. E. Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking Tool 2015: Energy, Water, and Carbon (Cornell Hospitality Reports, Cornell Univ., 2015).

22. Dudas, G., Boros, L., Pal, V. & Pernyesz, P. Mapping cost distance using air traffic data. J. Maps 12, 695–700 (2016).

23. World Population Prospects 2019 (United Nations, 2019); https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/

24. Greenhouse Gases Equivalencies Calculator - Calculations and References (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2020); https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references

25. World Economic Outlook Database (International Monetary Fund, accessed 30 October 2020); https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2017/02/weodata/index.aspx

26. Research and Development (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2020).

27. Employed Scientists and Engineers, by Occupation, Highest Degree Level, and Sex: 2017 (National Science Foundation, accessed 30 October 2020); https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/data

28. Skiles, M. Virtual-Conferences-Project (Zenodo, 2021); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5567764

## Acknowledgements

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.

## Author information

Authors

### Contributions

M.K., K.M.F. and M.S. conceived the idea. M.K., M.S., D.R.M. and D.C. collected data. M.S. and E.Y. analysed data. O.R., M.L.L, P.P.C, R.N., A.R. and A.A. provided access to data and provided insights on data. M.K., K.M.F., A.A. and M.S. wrote the manuscript.

### Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andrea Armani, Kasey M. Faust or Manish Kumar.

## Ethics declarations

### Competing interests

M.K. and M.L.L. were organizers of NAMS. A.R. was an organizer of ICLR. P.P.C. and R.N. were organizers of IWA. A.A. and O.R. were organizers of POM. All other authors have no competing interests.

Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Meagan Mauter and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

## Supplementary information

### Supplementary Information

Supplementary Discussion, Tables 1–21 and Figs. 1–15.

## Source data

### Source Data Fig. 1

Statistical source data.

### Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data.

### Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data.

## Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Skiles, M., Yang, E., Reshef, O. et al. Conference demographics and footprint changed by virtual platforms. Nat Sustain 5, 149–156 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00823-2

• Accepted:

• Published:

• Issue Date:

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00823-2

• ### Missed conference connections

Nature Geoscience (2022)

• ### Leadership, Leading, and Influencing Change in Cancer Education: Development and Assessment of a Pilot Leadership Workshop in Cancer Education for Interdisciplinary Healthcare Staff

• A. Warsi
• K. Dawdy
• Ewa Szumacher

Journal of Cancer Education (2022)