Who Gets to Be in the Room? Making Scientific Conferences More Accessible
Scientific conferences are among the most valuable opportunities researchers have to connect with the global community, exchange ideas, establish collaborations, showcase their findings, and build professional networks. But apart from the people who attend, every conference has an invisible guest list: those who wanted to join but could not clear the many barriers in the way. The postdoc whose stipend would not stretch to a flight. The scientist whose visa was denied for the third time. The parent with no childcare option for a five-day meeting. The researcher who uses a wheelchair and could not find step-free access to the poster hall. This list is usually ignored, because it barely affects the head count at the venue. Yet its absence shapes what gets discussed, who gets cited, and whose questions and comments are never heard.
Creating accessible conferences is not simply about increasing attendance, and it is too often reduced to ramps and captions. Those things do matter, and I will come back to them. But accessibility is a broader question: who can actually participate fully, and who is quietly filtered out before they even register? For global communities like plant science, where some of the most critical work on climate resilience, food security, and biodiversity is happening in the Global South, the cost of that filtering can be high. Here is what I have learned, both from attending conferences and from helping to organize them.
Cost is the first gate, and it closes early
The first thing a participant checks when a conference appeals to them is the registration fee, which often ranges from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. But this comes on top of the cost of travel, accommodation, meals, and visa fees, which together can push the total several times higher than the registration alone. For a student in a low-income country, attending in person in a high-income country can represent months of salary. When we set a single flat fee, we are not being neutral. We are choosing who can afford to attend.
Practical fixes exist, and they work. Tiered registration based on income level or career stage, along with meaningful fee waivers for participants from low-income countries, can be effective ways to ensure inclusivity, but they need to be advertised clearly rather than buried in the footnotes. Travel awards sponsored by organizers, scientific societies, and government funding agencies for early-career researchers are, and always will be, a great support. Too often, though, these grants cover only travel and registration and leave out accommodation and visa costs. Adding a reasonable accommodation allowance would help considerably. On a related note, offering rooms in the host institution’s hostel or guest house at minimal rates is another effective way to support participation.
Geography and visas decide attendance before science does
In the current geopolitical climate, geography and visas are emerging as key barriers to making conferences accessible to all. This under-discussed obstacle can sometimes outweigh even the most brilliant abstract. Organizers cannot fix immigration policy, but they can reduce the damage: issue invitations and support letters quickly and in the correct format, choose host locations with fairer visa access when possible, and treat visa timelines as a real constraint when setting deadlines.
Virtual and hybrid participation, which we all learned and adopted during the pandemic, is often the key to overcoming cost and visa barriers. People can connect online to present talks and posters, and to take part in discussions. The one thing that is lost is the personal human connection and the experience of traveling to explore a new place and culture. Recorded talks, live captions, and asynchronous discussion also give people in distant time zones and difficult circumstances a genuine seat. Hybrid formats do take real effort to run well, along with additional expense and reliable connectivity, but the gain is far larger than the cost.
Language is a barrier too
English is the default language of science, but for a large part of the world it is a second or third language. Sharing abstracts and other conference details in plain language, integrating tools that can translate material into a participant’s own language, and keeping captions on for every talk can all help lower this barrier. The aim is to judge the science, not the fluency.
Physical and sensory access is basic, not optional
This is the part most people talk about, yet it still gets neglected. It covers physical access, such as step-free routes, accessible restrooms, and seating for wheelchair users at the front and back rather than only in fixed rows. It covers sensory access, such as live captioning, which also helps non-native English speakers and anyone in a noisy room; sign-language interpreters on request; and microphones used for every question without exception. And it covers cognitive and sensory-processing needs, such as a quiet room for people who need a break from noise and crowds, predictable schedules, and advanced access to slides so people can prepare rather than scramble.
Ask about accommodation and special needs at registration through a genuine open field rather than a checkbox, and give a named contact who can offer guidance, including to speakers. Clear dietary information matters too. Good access design helps far more people than the specific group it was intended for.
Care responsibilities are a scientific issue
As a woman in science and a mother, I know how hard it is to attend five straight days of dawn-to-night sessions while worrying about children and the other duties that still fall disproportionately on women. On-site or subsidized childcare, nursing and pumping rooms, and family-friendly scheduling are not perks. They are what make full participation possible for many parents. This can be supported further by avoiding essential sessions at antisocial hours and, where possible, offering dedicated grants that encourage mothers to attend and take their place at the table.
Creating inclusive networking
One of the most valuable aspects of attending a conference is the networking that happens over coffee, outside the conference rooms. This comes easily to people who are already connected, or who are confident enough to take the lead. But first-timers, and those who do not share the dominant language or culture of the meeting, can quickly feel like outsiders. Small efforts from organizers to create a more welcoming environment can genuinely help: structured networking sessions, mentor-mentee matching programs, early-career researcher meetups, community discussion groups, virtual networking platforms, and inclusive social gatherings. One thing to watch here is that informal conference dinners are often not included in the registration fee. That extra cost places a further burden on participants who are already stretched, and can end up excluding the very people these gatherings are meant to bring in.
Scheduling
Every mind has a threshold of attention. Avoid packing every slot back-to-back. Talks should run for a reasonable duration, with real breaks built into the day rather than squeezed out of it. For virtual or hybrid events spanning time zones, either rotate session times so the inconvenience is shared fairly, or record everything so no one is forced to join at three in the morning. And check the calendar against major religious observances and public holidays before fixing the dates.
Creating an accessible conference requires collaboration among organizers, participants, exhibitors, funding agencies, and speakers. None of these points are charity or optional extras. They should be built into the conference agenda from the outset. It is also important to look back after every event to find the gaps, to see what worked and what did not, and a conference report can be published and shared with the community so that others can learn from it too. A genuine commitment to accessibility requires thoughtful planning, continuous improvement, and active engagement with the needs of diverse participants. By embracing accessibility as a core principle, scientific conferences can become spaces where every researcher has the opportunity to contribute, collaborate, and thrive.
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About the Author
Sonia is a Scientist at the Indian Biological Data Centre, Faridabad, India, where she leads the development of the Indian Crop Phenome Database, Indian Animal Phenome Database, Indian Array Data Archive, BioNode, and other national-scale FAIR data resources. Her work spans biocuration, computational biology, and plant molecular biology, with contributions to understanding microRNA-mediated stress responses in crops. She is also the founder and host of the Beyond Shodh (www.youtube.com/@beyondshodh24) podcast, serves on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Biocuration (ISB), and is an active member of AgBiodata. Find her on Bluesky: @soniabalyan.bsky.social | X: @sonia_balyanBS.
