Conferences. Some institutions of learning demand that their Masters or PhD students must attend at least one to graduate with a degree, while others don’t.
Even if your institution doesn’t have this as a prerequisite for graduation, don’t ignore them. Aim to, not only attend them, but also to make a presentation.
Look out for calls for conference abstracts in your chosen field and send in your abstract.
Ensure that you word the abstract in a way that speaks to the conference theme and requirements.
Conferences provide a number of great benefits to researchers who attend them.
How conference presentations can grow your research career – 3 Practical Tips
1. Learning
Conferences provide you with the opportunity to learn a great deal about the latest developments and ‘hot topics’ in our field.
The developments can be in terms of new findings or even new methods or applications being used in the field.
International conferences, in particular, can expose you to the latest software or equipment being used in your field. Learn as much as you can about these, and talk to the people using them to find out how you can get access to them, e.g. through future research stays.
2. Networking
Conferences are a great way to network with your peers as well as experts in your research area.
Networking is also a great way to form collaborative teams for future research.
Attending national or regional conferences can also help you get to know local stakeholders from different institutions such as government, academia, or NGOs who are also a wonderful resource in terms of knowledge and collaboration.
Networking can also lead you to other opportunities such as fellowships and research stays.
NOTE: COVID-19 changed the conference landscape by switching many conference formats to virtual rather than physical (although some are now starting to switch back to fully in-person).
This has provided more opportunities for researchers to attend more conferences by removing travel costs and other restraints.
However, virtual conferences can pose a challenge for networking. Check if your conference has some time set aside for virtual networking after the event.
If not, take the opportunity to reach out to speakers whose work interests you or relates to yours. Take a note of their contacts and write to them to get the conversation started.
Remember to state clearly who you are, briefly state your background and research area, let them know what you found interesting about their talk, and ask any questions you might have.
3. Feedback on your research
Making conference presentations is a great way to get feedback on your research from your peers as well as experts in the field.
Remember that the feedback may be positive or negative. Don’t take negative feedback personally. Improve on the areas that are pointed out to you.
In particular, use the feedback to improve our methodology for better results. Use positive feedback as an affirmation of your awesomeness!
4. Marketing yourself and your research
Lastly, conferences are a great way to get your research work out to the public (or at least the public in your field).
In general, many conference presentations are on preliminary research rather than work that has already been published in a journal.
However, recent practice has been to publish conference proceedings, so your work may very well end up being published from the conference.
However, be careful is you intend to analyze further data for the same study or if you would like to publish your findings in a journal (for reasons such as journal impact factor, for example).
This is because publishing the same (or a very similar) paper in a journal would be considered self-plagiarism.
Consider skipping publication in the conference proceedings if you want to publish the research in a journal.
Tips for African researchers attending conferences
- Seek out and speak to the experts – You never know what opportunities this may bring you in the future. Ask questions if you are not yet confident to share your work with them.
- Socialize with your peers. This can present great opportunities for collaboration as well. Collaborative research between early career researchers is being encouraged more and more.
- Attend all sessions that you can. If there are break-out groups, be sure to sit in the group which aligns closest to your interests. You will learn a lot! Remember to actively engage in the sessions.
