Beware of predatory meetings or conferences
Scientists face a daily deluge of emails, among them are scams promoting predatory publishers and even predatory conference invitations.
Predatory conferences or meetings aim to profit by exploiting inexperienced researchers and hoping they fall prey to speaking, submission, or registration invitations. As is common with predatory groups, they are companies whose primary interest is collecting fees, not advancing science. Researchers who fall prey will often find very few speakers, sessions, attendees, overall poor organization, no hotels booked, or – in worst-case scenarios – no conference taking place at all.
Predatory groups will typically generate a conference website, capitalizing on industry buzzwords and reputable existing conference names. The website’s wording will also usually appear AI-generated and generic. Predatory conference websites will typically list associated “speakers”. However, more often than not, these speakers are not recognizable leaders in the field, or their names and images are being used without permission.
To avoid these predatory groups, you should ask yourself whether the conference organizer is credible. If you and your colleagues have never heard of the company or meeting, and it is not associated with or announced on the website of any professional society in your field (e.g. AAI’s Scientific Meetings Calendar, AACR, FOCIS, AAAAI, CIS, etc), it is likely predatory. Predatory conference groups will typically promote multiple conferences on entirely unrelated topics (immunology, mental health awareness, etc.) on the same dates throughout the year. This is a tactic used to generate volume and revenue across different fields. Read this blog post for more ways to tell a predatory meeting from a legitimate one.
AAI urges its members and the broader immunological enterprise to remain informed of predatory practices, and to educate trainees and early-career researchers on the tell-tale signs of predatory conferences and predatory publishers.