Michael Eisen recently commented on Bluesky on the scientific societies
I commented that this is a déjà vue from spring 2020 when scientific societies didn’t wanted to sacrifice their second cash cow – the conference fees. A few minutes later I had some doubts if this wasn’t a cheeky remark but here is what I found out rather quickly.
https://elifesciences.org/articles/57032
Suggests that funding bodies should reimburse researchers for canceled travel, even if cancellations are voluntary – so the money stays with the organizers
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40620-023-01723-8
Reducing costs and expanding access can be achieved through tiered registration fees based on income or professional status also for online events – although there are only minimal costs for the society.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7229876/
Complaint of dramatic effects on scientific societies.
A kidney care company did not cancel its conference even as the coronavirus spread. One attendee has been diagnosed, prompting fears that it will spread among doctors and patients.
https://www.papercurve.com/post/the-medical-conference-is-dead-long-live-the-medical-conference
Medical societies responded particularly slowly and conservatively to sudden, strict event curtailment. After all, there was no way of knowing just how quickly the coronavirus would spread, nor how long it would take us to get a handle on it, medically speaking.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.726037/full
Among 33 conferences analyzed, 13 (39.4%) were conducted as scheduled, nine (27.3%) were canceled, eight (24.3%) were postponed to 2021 or 2022, and three (9.1%) were delayed but conducted in 2020.