Open AccessTen simple rules for switching from face-to-face to remote conference: An opportunity to estimate the reduction in GHG emissions
Author(s) -
Valentin Guig,
Catherine Breton,
Jérôme Mariette,
François Sabot,
Julien Fumey,
Vincent Lefort,
Anna-Sophie Fiston-Lavier
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos computational biology/plos computational biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.628
H-Index - 182
eISSN - 1553-7358
pISSN - 1553-734X
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009321
Subject(s) - face (sociological concept) , greenhouse gas , covid-19 , attendance , simple (philosophy) , face to face , pandemic , computer science , business , public relations , operations research , political science , engineering , medicine , sociology , law , ecology , social science , philosophy , disease , epistemology , pathology , virology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty) , biology
In 2020, the world faced the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic that drastically altered people’s lives. Since then, many countries have been forced to suspend public gatherings, leading to many conference cancellations, postponements, or reorganizations. Switching from a face-to-face to a remote conference became inevitable and the ultimate solution to sustain scientific exchanges at the national and the international levels. The same year, as a committee, we were in charge of organizing the major French annual conference that covers all computational biology areas: The “Journées Ouvertes en Biologie, Informatique et Mathématiques ” (JOBIM). Despite the health crisis, we succeeded in changing the conference format from face to face to remote in a very short amount of time. Here, we propose 10 simple rules based on this experience to modify a conference format in an optimized and cost-effective way. In addition to the suggested rules, we decided to emphasize an unexpected benefit of this situation: a significant reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to travel for scientific conference attendance. We believe that even once the SARS-CoV-2 crisis is over, we collectively will have an opportunity to think about the way we approach such scientific events over the longer term.