The future of scientific conferences in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic: Critical analysis and future perspectives

The global spread of COVID-19 pandemic forced the scientific community to identify new ways of exchanging and transferring the scientific knowledge, also considering that the measures taken to combat the pandemic, such as travel restrictions, closed borders and gathering bans, led to cancellations of many conferences, meetings and workshops. The enhancement of the existing digital platforms and the development of new systems to share scientific knowledge has allowed the scientific community to meet again in new virtual environments (e.g., Zoom, Cisco WebEx, Live Stream, Demio, GoToWebinar Seminar, Google Hangouts, Skype, Microsoft Teams, etc.), providing an unprecedented opportunity to reform methods of organizing academic conferences in all disciplines.Starting from the review of the existing literature, this study aimed at investigating the impact of the spreading of virtual conferences on the field of research. The SWOT analysis was used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the scientific conferences organized in the new format, as well as opportunities and threats created by the socio-economic and political context in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Automated summary

The global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation of many conferences, prompting the scientific community to develop virtual conferences and reshape methods of organizing academic meetings. This study conducted a SWOT analysis to examine the impact of virtual conferences on research, identifying strengths and weaknesses of the new format, as well as opportunities and threats in the socio-economic and political context of the pandemic era.