As part of an effort to scale back costs and be more efficient, the Obama administration has imposed limits on how much money US federal agencies may spend on conferences, but some scientific organizations are concerned that such a move will impede participation in scientific conferences, The New York Times reports.
A memo written in May from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget calls for agencies to decrease travel spending by 30 percent and sets a cap for what an agency may spend on a single conference. This, a spokesperson tells the Times, will save $1.2 billion for the 2013 fiscal year.
However, in a letter sent to lawmakers in the House of Representatives and Senate as well as the budget and science offices in September, representatives from a number of science and technology societies and organizations asked that "recognized scientific, technical and educational meetings" and "meetings of national and international standards bodies" be exempt from the policy, the Times says. The budget office spokesperson says it has not received the letter.
"Participation in scientific conferences is a critical opportunity for scientists and engineers to keep current in rapidly changing fields of science and technology," the letter adds. "These conferences facilitate communication among scientists, engineers, practitioners and students. They provide an important venue for presenting cutting-edge research."
Well maybe. Except a typical
Well maybe. Except a typical scenario is that the majority of the presentations of note at the meetings are given by a consistent cadre of muckety mucks who give virtually the same talk from 4 to 20 times per year, at CSH, Keystone, Gordon Conf, the major society meetings, the Tri-Cons and big CHI meetings, etc., with favored post-docts and perma-docs accorded the privilege of making the same presentation at lesser society meetings, CHI's etc. The Scientific Value/Cost ratio of all this extreme junketing is probably not all that high.
How about video conferences for most of it from now on? Net meeting/Goto meeting, etc. For the value of the scientific exchange they are probably better than lecture hall presentations and they are all designed to support high levels of real time interaction. And a whole lot cheaper. Course you still need the elbow to elbow schmoozing among the major muckety mucks for some alcohol lubricated idea sharing, as well as for sharing perfunctory judgments about other people's work and promise. There can still be plenty of that if even 90% of the meetings are cancelled and the moneys productively redeployed.