Academic events such as congresses, conferences, symposia and meetings are part and parcel of most academic careers. Endless hours are spent for both attendees and chairs on travelling, logistics, socialising and many other activities not directly related to core tasks such as teaching, research and knowledge dissemination.
Despite the entrenched nature, and the general wave of evaluation on institutions within higher education, there is hardly a language for describing the impact of academic events. This is not only a problem for academia itself, but also for the meetings industry, which need to understand how it is part of a system of knowledge production and utilisation. Based on qualitative interview, a typology of academic events is presented, and their impact is analysed using the concept of cycles of credibility. Thee focus is both on attendees and chairs of academic events.
The project has been carried out under the Industrial PhD programme. Besides funding Innovation Fund Denmark, the project has been developed and financed in collaboration with Wonderful Copenhagen, VisitAarhus, Humanomics Research Centre and Tourism Research Unit at Aalborg University.
The Impacts of Academic Events: Cycle of Credibility as an Analytical Framework
What’s in it for the Academic Community? New Copenhagen PhD Study Identifies Academic Benefits of Chairing and Attending Events (Wonderful Copenhagen repost)
“Groundbreaking” Thesis Outlines Benefits of Academic Meetings (Association Meetings International article)
Further reading:
The impact of academic events – A literature review (Oxford University Press | OXFORD ACADEMIC research evaluation, Volume 27, Issue 4, October 2018)
Academic Events: An Empirically Grounded Typology and Their Academic Impact (ingenta CONNECT | Event Management, Volume 24, Number 4, May 2020)
Chairs of academic events: The investments and academic impact (Oxford University Press | Science and Public Policy, Volume 47, Issue 3, June 2020)
