Steep fees, little substance
Welcome to our fake conference
‘At least you’ll be able to say you attended a weird presentation about mobile phones on buses.’ Rand Raheem, researcher at the University of Middlesex in England, chuckles with discomfort as she ends her lecture. She just talked for twenty minutes about the issues of unstable internet connections on fast public transport such as trains and buses and how they can be solved.
It’s a perfectly normal subject for an academic conference, except for the fact that Raheem is speaking at a special conference about neuroscience: NeuroTalk Budapest.
She’s not the only fish out of water at this session, called ‘Recent fundamental research in neuroscience’. The lecture following hers is about osteoporosis during dental procedures. Even the presentations during this afternoon session that are related to neuroscience aren’t really part of a cohesive whole. They range from subjects like how interjections help us understand sentences to the electric stimulation of dorsal nerves in an effort to stimulate the recovery of damaged intervertebral discs.
Conferences usually don’t have this much variation in subjects. The sessions usually complement each other, allowing people across the field to meet and talk and learn from each other. Conferences are immensely valuable to academics, since they’re places where they can network, raise awareness of their research, and find inspiration for new research.
Anyone can speak
So what’s happening in Budapest? Neurotalk2024Europe, as the gathering is officially called, is what’s known as a predatory conference. It’s kind of like buying knock-off Nikes without realising it. They may look real from a distance, but up close, they turn out to be a crappy copy, the fake Amazon version.
That’s in part because no academics are involved in making the programme for these conferences. Everyone can participate as long as they pay the registration fee, which is exorbitant. That means the whole thing is a disjointed mess of subjects. This costs a lot in public funds, while the organisers reap the rewards (see box).
The conference opener was just sad
Time to take a closer look at this interesting racket. The NeuroTalk conference, which took place in Budapest last June, presents us with a great opportunity. The list of speakers includes two Groningen academics. What brings them here, and are they aware of this new form of misuse of academics?
The three-day conference, which takes place in the fancy Radisson Blu Beke hotel, is organised by BITcongress. It’s a somewhat shady company from China that often appears on the list of predatory conference organisers. BIT is registered in Dalian, China, and says it organises conferences in Europe, Japan, and China.
Participants are recruited with flattering emails, asking them to give a lecture on their ‘important’ research. The emails, which are often flagged as spam, usually start with ‘esteemed professor’. Because of that, these conferences are also nicknamed vanity conferences. Your UKrant reporter, who used to work as a neuroscientist, also received such an email.
Below par
UG professor of educational sciences Alexander Minnaert decided to respond to one of these NeuroTalk requests, he tells us after the last morning session, which he chaired. He held a presentation himself: an inspired story of how deaf-and-mute children can learn how to communicate. ‘I was supposed to go to an earlier edition in Singapore, but it was cancelled because of Covid. They wouldn’t refund my registration fee, so I decided to come to this one in Budapest.’
Minnaert says the university pays the fee, which ranges from 1,650 to 3,050 dollars per person according to the website. He is combining the conference with a visit to some research project colleagues in the region.
Minnaert acknowledges that the quality of many of the presentations is below par. ‘Because I was chairing one session I made some suggestions that would make things more coherent, but no one listened to me, unfortunately.’ The talks can also be difficult to follow. ‘They were all over the place. The conference opener was just sad.’
Characteristics
However, calling NeuroTalk a swindle might be taking it a step too far. After all, the attendees are real academics, who give real presentations and who signed up for the conference willingly. The logistics are good and the décor looks professional. There are plenty of free lunches and drinks to keep the participants happy. And, as every researcher knows, the smaller regular conferences aren’t always up to par, either.
But if you look closer and talk to more of the visitors on site, it becomes clear how sketchy the situation really is. The same sketchy characteristics are mentioned in other reports on fake conferences (one was recently published in Nature), in warnings published in professional journals such as Science and Nature, and on the websites of universities and the companies that make conference software: ‘How to spot a fake conference in 2024?’
The academic fields certainly overlap here
One warning sign is the conference website’s complete lack of summaries of the lectures that will be given. At regular conferences, these help people decide which talks to attend. Another warning sign is that the conference is organised by a shady Chinese company instead of a professional organisation, as well as the fact that anyone is allowed to speak as long as they pony up the registration fee.
Then there’s the red flag that there are eight other conferences at the hotel at the same time as NeuroTalk and they’re all being organised by BITcongress. The topics range from cardiology to dentistry and the conferences have over-the-top names, such as ‘Annual world cancer congress’ and ‘Annual world congress of smart materials’. None of the visitors we spoke to were aware of the other conferences. ‘I had no idea’, American Jenny Choi, who’s here to attend the ‘Annual world congress of digestive disease’, says in surprise. According to the organisers on site, there are a total of four hundred attendees. This number hides the fact that some of these conferences don’t amount to much: Choi’s AWCDD conference only consists of two sessions.
But when asked, educational specialist Minnaert doesn’t think the conference is a scam. ‘People are always saying academic fields should overlap more. That’s certainly happening here. I thought extending the topics to include medicine was an interesting choice, and I made some new contacts. After my presentation, someone asked me if I was attending the afternoon session; he wanted to keep talking.’
No top academics
Behrooz Alizadeh, epidemiologist at the UMCG, is less impressed. ‘If the interdisciplinary character of the conference was more professional this could’ve been a truly interesting situation, but it isn’t even remotely’, he says from a couch on the hotel’s second floor. Like many other participants, he is disappointed in the conference’s academic level. ‘Few of the speakers are top academics in their field, not even the keynote speakers. They’re clearly just here to pad their CVs. That’s all a bit dubious.’
weinig te spreken over het wetenschappelijke niveau. ‘Veel sprekers zijn geen toppers in hun vakgebied, zelfs niet de keynote speakers. Het is vooral goed voor hun eigen cv, dat is wel dubieus.’
So why is he here? ‘I thought I’d come and see for myself.’ While he was more defensive when we asked him the same question before the conference, telling us in an email that this was a perfectly legal conference, he is more open in person. ‘It’s not the type of conference I would normally attend, but the organisation paid for my registration fee and a room at the hotel.’
One important reason for him to say yes to the invitation was that he was going to speak at the overarching keynote forum, which would be open to all four hundred conference visitors. But that plan was ultimately scrapped. ‘That upset me, it wasn’t what we’d agreed on.’
Retirees
In addition to the two researchers from Groningen, there are another couple of Dutch speakers on the programme. One of them is Parkinson’s researcher Ciska Heida, with the University of Twente. She was drawn in by NeuroTalk’s all-encompassing programme, she says after her lecture is finished. ‘The more well-known conferences tend to just invite the usual suspects for their lectures.’
Her lecture, on a recent study on how virtual reality and special vibrating socks can help Parkinson’s patients to walk better, differs greatly from the quality of many other presentations. They’re hardly state of the art, and most of them discuss academic studies that are five or more years old.
This conference is useless; I feel swindled
That’s not surprising since the average age of the speakers is quite high; some of them have already retired. One of them is Roberto Avola, a 73-year-old Sicilian professor. During his lecture, he slowly shuffled over to his laptop, sat down, and proceeded to literally read the text on his slide, in a near-unintelligible Italian accent. ‘The majority of the speakers seem to be retirees’, Heida notices.
Some participants feel genuinely scammed, like Marisol Hernández with the University of Chile. ‘I’m here because I was invited and I was told there would be interesting lectures on leadership and health. But the subjects vary way too much. Other conferences can help in my academic development, allowing me to make new connections. This conference is completely useless. I feel swindled.’
Coming here cost her thousands of euros. Since Chile isn’t the richest country, it’s an even bigger expenditure for her than it is for Western researchers.
Perfectly normal
But BITcongress’ representatives, five Chinese people who have been running around for three days, don’t seem to be aware that anything is amiss. One of them is Mr. Liu. When asked, he confirms that academics were approached by email, and that anyone who answers affirmatively and pays their registration fees is allowed to speak. He says this as though it’s perfectly normal.
According to him, the conference is in line with his organisation’s goals. ‘My boss is a doctor and entrepreneur, and he set up these conferences in an effort to bring together academics and corporate professionals.’ How much money BIT earns from these conferences is difficult to determine, but based on the registration fees, it will be close to a million euros. The hotel says the amounts they charge are confidential.
None of the current visitors is planning to attend any of the next editions, held in Dublin and Stockholm. ‘This was the first and the last time I’ve gone to one of these things’, says UT researcher Heida. ‘If I’d known what it was like beforehand, I wouldn’t have come at all.’ The UMCG’s Alizadeh agrees. ‘But it was good to have been there at least once, just for the experience.’
The conference organisers probably don’t care if they get repeat customers. BITcongress has already been paid and can use the group photos and the names of the visitors to advertise future conferences. This sustains them and ensures people’s interest. After all, there are plenty of academics left to email.
Your reporter was also invited to speak at NeuroTalk Dublin. Anyone who registers now will receive a 50 percent discount and only has to pay 750 euros in registration fees. A proposal for a nonsensical presentation, on the effect of aliens on brain activity, is accepted without issues. It also turns out the registration fee is negotiable. ‘How much can you afford?’
More fake conferences than real ones
How big is this business of fake conferences? Not much research has been done. British researcher Andy Nobes came to the conclusion a few years ago that there are likely more fake conferences than regular ones. A large player like the Indian company OMICS, which is also infamous for publishing fake journals, organises around three thousand conferences a year. Another well-known party is the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET).
In 2016, the American competition authority sued OMICS for the misleading character of their conferences and journals. A judge issued a 50 million dollar fine to the Indian company. OMICS denied the allegations, and started a counterclaim worth 3 billion.
This article was written with support from the VWN Tripfonds. A more extensive version will be published next year, in a book the author is writing about academic integrity.