# The future of meetings in the particle astrophysics community

L Tibaldo, E Prandini, J Biteau, D Horan, G.W Kluge, A Nelles

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L Tibaldo, E Prandini, J Biteau, D Horan, G.W Kluge, et al.. The future of meetings in the particle astrophysics community. Nature Astronomy, 2023, 7 (12), pp.1408-1411. 10.1038/s41550-023-02152-0. hal-04351550

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# The future of meetings in the particle astrophysics community

L. Tibaldo, E. Prandini, J. Biteau, D. Horan, G. W. Kluge & A. Nelles

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A recent survey suggests that reducing the number of meetings and conferences is a viable way to address concerns about the effectiveness of the modern scientific collaboration process, its effects on the environment and the well-being of the community.

After the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have started rethinking the role of in-person meetings in the scientific community¹. Traditional in-person meetings are now recognized to have issues related to sustainability as well as accessibility and inclusivity². On one front, scientific meetings contribute to climate change because they are an important source of travel-related greenhouse-gas emissions³ – professional travel is evaluated to account for 16–47% of all greenhouse-gas emissions generated by astronomical research⁴⁻⁷, depending on how this is calculated and other factors. On another front, traditional in-person scientific meetings tend to exclude a part of the community, whether this is due to lack of access to funding and visas, limited time or capacity to travel for personal or professional reasons, or challenges for scientists with disabilities⁸. Nevertheless, in-person meetings also have undeniable benefits in terms of facilitating exchanges between scientists and networking opportunities. Together with so-called 'Zoom fatigue'⁹, this pushed the community to return to in-person meetings when travel restrictions eased.

We performed an anonymous online survey in the particle astrophysics community from January to May 2023 to take stock of the perception of the current situation and to explore what people would prefer for the future organization of scientific meetings. Particle astrophysics is a cross-disciplinary research domain, mostly organized in large collaborations (with typical sizes of hundreds of scientists) built

around observational facilities. The survey was run through the free, open-source platform Framaforms, and circulated through the mailing lists of more than a dozen large collaborations. We have confirmation of the circulation in the following collaborations: AMEGO, AMS-02, Auger, CTA, *Fermi*-LAT, HAWC, H.E.S.S., IceCube, LHAASO, MAGIC, RNO-G, SWGO, Telescope Array, Virgo and VERITAS. We collected 438 valid answers, which, to provide some context, corresponds to 26% of the 1,683 persons registered for the 2021 edition of the International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC). The ICRC is considered to be the largest gathering of the particle astrophysics community.

Figure 1 shows a breakdown of the fraction of respondents according to some categories that may have an effect on the interpretation of the results. Among the respondents, 70% identify as male and 28% as female, fractions that, in our experience, approximately reflect the composition of the community. For the following, we will not present results separately for respondents that do not identify as males or females because the sample is too limited (11 respondents). We notice some bias in academic status towards more senior members of the community. There is also a possible geographical bias, with a lack of responses from scientists outside Europe and North America.

## Conferences

We asked the respondents to consider only workshops, conferences and symposia that have at least 50 attendees. Furthermore, the questions were aimed at topical conferences in the particle astrophysics field. Therefore, the results that follow exclude any smaller conferences and conferences covering broader fields, such as general astronomy or particle physics conferences, and collaboration meetings, which are discussed separately below.

The respondents declared that they were interested in attending, either in-person or online, 0 to 10 conferences per year, with a median value of 3 conferences. The number of personal invitations to speak at a conference received per year also varied from 0 to 10, but with a median value of 1. Almost 40% of the respondents are invited to conferences

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1 | Breakdown of survey participation by gender, academic status and geographical area.** For gender, 'Other answer' includes both people who indicated themselves as belonging to another gender and people who did</figcaption></figure>

not wish to provide an answer. We define as junior (senior) researchers, those respondents who have held a staff, tenured or tenure-track position for less (more) than ten years.
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2** | Perception of the number of conferences available in the field of particle astrophysics according to the respondents. Responses are broken down according to gender, academic status and geographical area.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3** | Reasons why the respondents think that there are too many conferences. The phrasing in the legend follows that used in the online survey. For each subsample, we show the fraction of the respondents that selected a given reason out of the total number of respondents in the subsample. Each</figcaption></figure>

respondent who considered the number of conferences too large could select multiple options. The error bars show the statistical (Poisson) fluctuations estimated from the number of respondents that selected the reason.
Comment

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 4** | Solutions favoured by respondents who consider the number of conferences too large in order to mitigate the problem. The figure format is designed to be similar to Fig. 3.</figcaption></figure>

less frequently than once every four years. The number of conferences attended every year also varies from 0 to 10 with a median value of 1. Therefore, respondents typically attend only one third of the available medium or large conferences on particle astrophysics that they consider interesting. About 10% of the respondents attend less than a conference per year in this category.

We asked the participants to evaluate the number and frequency of conferences and the answers are summarized in Fig. 2. Among the respondents, 51% think that the number of conferences is appropriate, while 39% think that there are too many conferences. The fraction of respondents that find the number of conferences too large varies according to gender, academic status and geographical area. Only about 10% of students consider the number of conferences to be excessive. For all other categories, more than 25% of the respondents think that there are too many conferences, and the fraction is as high as 49% among female respondents.

The reasons why the number of conferences is perceived as too large are summarized in Fig. 3. We show the fraction of respondents that selected a given reason out of the total number of respondents in the subsample. For instance, the 8.5% of male respondents that selected ‘difficulties to travel’ as a reason why there are too many conferences

corresponds to 26 out of the 306 male respondents that filled in the survey. The motivations selected vary according to the population considered, with those that stand out markedly being: scientific discussion becomes scattered across meetings attended only by a smaller part of the community, interference with other professional activities or personal life, and the impact on the environment.

Even though the reasons why the number of conferences is perceived as too large vary for all categories, the preferred solution would be to reduce the number of conferences, as shown in Fig. 4. Except for PhD students and postdocs, the fraction of respondents who suggest reducing the number of conferences exceeds 15%, and reaches almost 29% among females, and 34% among senior researchers. This solution is largely preferred to the diversification of conference formats, whether this consists of switching to online-only for some conferences, proposing a high-quality hybrid solution, or keeping in-person conferences only for specific formats for which it is necessary.

## Collaboration meetings

The particle astrophysics community is mostly organized into large observational collaborations. We inquired about collaboration meetings (also limiting the scope to collaborations exceeding 50 people).
The respondents are part of a number of collaborations ranging from 0 to 8 collaborations, with a median of 2 collaborations. For respondents who are members of at least one collaboration, the number of in-person collaboration meetings in which they could participate varies from 1 to 13 per year, with a median of 4 per year.

When asked about the number and frequency of collaboration meetings, 64% of the respondents assert that it is appropriate, while 29% think it is too large, 4% are unsure, and 3% think it is too small. In this case, there is less of a difference between the responses from different populations. The prime reason why respondents think that the number is too large is the environmental impact (17% of the total number of respondents), closely followed by the impact on professional and personal life. Once again, the preferred solution is to reduce the number of meetings (22% of the total number of respondents).

Discussion

The practice and habits of scientific meetings have historical roots. They were first established at times during which travelling and meeting in person was the only way to effectively exchange and collaborate. In the past decades, professional travels have become increasingly more accessible and they have also become a means of obtaining or maintaining scientific visibility¹⁰. The issues of the current systems, as briefly summarized above, have so far been mainly addressed by proposals to diversify the meeting formats with an emphasis on digital first<fnref n="1" />.

Despite the limited participation in this survey, the results do suggest that another complementary avenue should be considered as well: reducing the number of meetings. While 51% of the respondents think that the current number of conferences is appropriate, excluding students, more than 25% of the respondents think that there are too many conferences, and the fraction almost reaches 50% for some categories. The mechanisms by which scientists feel compelled to attend so many meetings that they consider to have a negative impact on their lives are not completely clear. Learning to say no may be a key skill for researchers to develop¹¹. Nevertheless, reducing the number of meetings is the prime solution to this problem for the respondents, favoured over digitalization and changes of format.

The main exception to this general picture is the opinions of students, who seem more satisfied with the current situation. It is unclear whether this is because they are not yet confident enough to criticize the status quo, because they feel a need for more opportunities to exchange and network, because of the novelty of discovering new places and colleagues, or because the current generation has suffered from a lack of in-person meetings during the (post-)pandemic years. Indeed, postdocs are also less keen on a reduction of the number of meetings. It is therefore essential that the needs of early-career researchers are carefully evaluated if any changes to the current practice are proposed or enacted. Similarly, the impact on colleagues outside Europe and North America, who may experience

more difficulties with travel (higher costs and/or longer journeys for distant meeting locations, the need for visas, and so on), should also be considered.

At the same time, several options exist to reduce the number of meetings while maintaining opportunities for scientific discussion and networking: reducing the frequency of meetings, merging different meetings that have largely overlapping topics and audiences, or switching from regular meetings to meetings on demand. Many such options require better coordination and cooperation within the community: sharing in advance plans for meetings and conferences, and being open to reconsidering arrangements and to cooperating rather than competing among different groups.

We urge other scientific communities to question the number and frequency of their topical meetings. It seems likely that this is a path to pursue—along with digitalization, experimentation into new formats and efforts towards accessibility, inclusivity and sustainability—towards a future that is more effective and respectful of the environment and of the well-being of all community members.

L. Tibaldo Ⓓ1, E. Prandini Ⓓ2, J. Biteau$^{3,4}$, D. Horan$^5$, G. W. Kluge Ⓓ6 & A. Nelles Ⓓ7,8

Published online: 13 December 2023

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

<footnote n="1">¹IRAP, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, CNES, UPS, Toulouse, France. ²Department of Physics and Astronomy “Galileo Galilei”, Padova University, Padua, Italy. ³Université Paris-Saclay,</footnote>

<footnote>CNRS/IN2P3, IJCLab, Orsay, France. ⁴Institut universitaire de France (IUF) https://www.iufrance.fr/. ⁵Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet, CNRS/ IN2P3, École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France. ⁶Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ECAP, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany. ⁸Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Zeuthen, Germany.</footnote>

<footnote>✉e-mail: luigi.tibaldo@irap.omp.eu; elisa.prandini@unipd.it</footnote>