¡°Predatory¡± conferences now outnumber official events organised by scholarly societies following an explosion in the number of such symposia held across the world, a researcher has warned.

Tens of thousands of academics are now likely to be paying to give papers at conferences of questionable value because of the ¡°incredible demand¡± to present at international events, often the ¡°difference between getting hired or promoted or not¡±, said James McCrostie, associate professor at Daito Bunka University in Japan, who researches the issue.

¡°I can attend a predatory conference somewhere in Japan nearly every week of the year,¡± he warned, although the most prolific organisers tend to centre their operations on major cities including London, Paris, Dubai and Bangkok.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ?examined the activities of one conference organiser, the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (Waset), after it was contacted by a UK cybersecurity worker who attended one of Waset¡¯s events in Copenhagen earlier this month.

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The event ¨C titled the ¨C was billed as an ¡°interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators¡± in that field and its website appeared consistent with other reputable conferences, he told?THE.

However, after having his paper accepted and travelling to Denmark, he was left sorely disappointed: proceedings were compressed into two hours on the first morning and one on the second, and barely 10 people attended the event, held in a single small room, he said.

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With other speakers addressing subjects as diverse as robots, solar energy, Islamic finance and food safety, he concluded that multiple ¡°conferences¡± had been loaded into the same room.

¡°We lost the conference registration fee of €450 (?400), plus roughly ?400 for the flight and two nights¡¯ accommodation,¡± he said. He has subsequently found 153 accepted submissions from UK academics listed by Waset in 2017 alone, which, if they all paid the same, would represent registration revenue of €68,850.

Subsequent research into Waset, which is registered in the United Arab Emirates, shows that it will hold some 183 events in 2018, although these will cover almost 60,000 individual ¡°conferences¡± ¨C averaging 320 at each event.

Conferences are scheduled almost every day up until the end of 2030.

¡°Many might question why anyone would sign up¡­but to the untrained eye, however, the site is pretty consistent with other legitimate conferences I¡¯ve previously spoken at,¡± said the researcher.

¡°The giveaways are certainly there if you dig a little deeper, but first you have to have your suspicions aroused,¡± he said, adding that his US research collaborators had mistakenly believed that the event was linked to the International Society of Political Psychology.

¡°We came across the event by googling it ¨C if you¡¯re looking for a niche conference and happen upon it, everything looks quite legitimate,¡± he said. "Other academics I've spoken to have said they want to give their PhD students a chance to speak at a conference, so don¡¯t go for the most prestigious ones, but [they] have no idea what these events actually are.¡±

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The last Waset event to take place in London occurred on 19 October at the Holiday Inn, in Wembley, where events take place each month. According to Waset¡¯s site, 387 separate conferences were due to take place that day, while January¡¯s event will host 618 ¡°conferences¡±.

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Universities should do more to raise??about these events, the researcher said, adding that ¡°he had no knowledge¡± of the problems associated with such conferences.

THE?has been unable to contact Waset.

Mr McCrostie said that he was not surprised that UK-based scholars had fallen prey to organisers of predatory conferences.

¡°Multidisciplinary events that combine different fields into one conference like Waset does should be a huge red flag, but there are academics who legitimately haven¡¯t heard of the term,¡± he said.

Universities, especially graduate schools, have done ¡°essentially nothing¡± to raise awareness of the issue, he added.

The bigger problem is a failure to properly research the conference organiser before accepting invitations, submitting papers or agreeing to host events, Mr McCrostie added.

¡°Scholars seem to spend more time considering the timing and location of a conference than doing basic research into the organisation behind it,¡± he said.

Mr McCrostie said that the need for action was urgent if scholarly standards were to be maintained.

¡°In terms of sheer numbers, predatory conferences by for-profit companies now outnumber legitimate events put on by scholarly societies,¡± he warned. ¡°Predatory conference organisers have seen the demand and are doing their best to meet it.¡±

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com