- Why are conferences needed?
There is very little research about how conferences help the diffusion of knowledge through a science community. For instance it is unclear if large or small conferences help more, or connectivity with different research disciplines or fields. The idea of information diffusion is related to connectivity in social networks and has been discussed, http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ladamic/papers/CitationNetworks/CitationNetworksICWSM2009.pdf, to show a longer delay for citations across scientific disciplines than within them. This suggests that indeed some conferences are more important for diffusing information than others.
It is very hard to set up control experiments, but it would be extremely interesting to model these phenomena, for instance along the lines of informatics researcher Duncan Watts (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html?page=0%2C1). This could test ideas such as when the number of people working in a field increases too much so that they can’t all attend the same meetings, the relative cross fertilisation rate drops. This would give a reason for why increasing the number of scientists can reduce the diffusion of novel ideas. Perhaps there is a maximum speed to the diffusion of knowledge, but are we at this limit?
- Which conferences do scientists choose to go to?
What is the right size of a conference?
What is the best way to organise a conference?
Why do scientists choose one conference over another?
What is the right number of conferences to attend in a single year?
When do scientists feel that a conference was worthwhile?
How do scientists give feedback to conferences?
Do exotic locations help conferences succeed?
How do we measure value for money for conferences?