ITMO Authors

Predatory conferences

2025-07-22 15:54
Imagine that you are a scientist invited to a conference on Particle Physics in Geneva. When you arrive, you discover that among the participants there are researchers from various fields including General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Optics. All the colleagues, representing the countries around the world, were expecting to attend a specialized conference in their field. The question arises: which conference is it? Why have some sessions been cancelled? And where are the event organizers themselves? It gradually becomes clear that everyone has been cheated.

What are predatory conferences?

Predatory conferences, also known as bogus or fake conferences, present themselves as academic events, however, their purpose is getting the money from registration fees without making any significant contribution to the advancement of science.
Such unfair practices can often appear due to a lack of availability at reputed events and the desire of young scientists to attend international conferences. Most of those deceived are early-career researchers from non-English speaking countries.
In some ways, fake conferences are similar to predatory journals, which publish any research without fee-paid reviewing. Like predatory journals, predatory conferences can ingeniously disguise their fake nature..
There are two types of predatory conferences:

1. Conferences that are not held at all
Information about the conference can be found only on its website and often in spam mailing. Once the registration fee is paid, all communication with organizers ceases.
2. Conferences of doubtful quality
The event is held, however, it does not meet the generally accepted standards. This is often manifested in poor organization, changes in the program, absence of the announced speakers, and pseudoscientific papers that lack any logical connections with each other.
Registration and possible participation in a predatory conference can result in losing considerable financial losses and damaging your academic reputation. Such events are often organized by the same predatory journals/publishers to pretend to be highly active and to build trust in their work. After the conference, they automatically publish the proceedings in their open access journals, depriving the authors of the opportunity to publish in any reliable sources.

"Red flags" of predatory conferences

If you see one or more of the following signs, you are likely to have found a predatory conference:
  • conference is held in tourist-attractive locations (for example, London, Dubai, Rome, Tokyo);
  • use of terms "global", "international" and other generic words in titles;
  • invitations and correspondence with the organizers contain many grammatical errors and typos;
  • invitations are sent as spam emails or personal messages on social networks;
  • invitations are sent from Gmail, Hotmail or other public email accounts rather than those associated with an institution;
  • email asks you to invite your colleagues to attend the conference;
  • you are invited to a conference whose topic does not correspond to your field of research;
  • conference covers a large number of thematic areas without any logical connection between them;
  • conference is held only online;
  • abstract submission, conference date, registration deadline and other important dates undergo frequent changes;
  • no selection and reviewing process can be traced;
  • refund of the registration fee is not possible or is provided in the form of a voucher for another conference of the same organizer;
  • conference organizer provides false information about indexing or affiliation with a large publisher or service;
  • conference program information is unclear and changes frequently;
  • the subject line of the email says: "you are invited";
  • after paying the registration fee, the organizer provides a certificate of participation.
Tips for avoiding predatory conferences:
  • ask for advice from your advisor or other more experienced colleagues;
  • search for the conference and organizer names online;
  • check if the conference is affiliated with a reputed scientific institution;
  • compare the registration fee to other conferences in your field;
  • have a close look at any commercial sponsorships;
  • beware of the spelling and grammar errors in conference materials;
  • check if speaker affiliations, location, dates and other information is up to date;
  • contact the location to make sure the event will take place;
  • see the contact information and how the conference organizers prefer to be contacted (via a chatbot, messaging app, or informal email addresses);
  • find out whether the conference is relevant to your research interests;
  • be suspicious about the conference marketing materials that focus more on tourism than on academia;
  • be suspicious about the conferences that accept papers very quickly or without any peer reviewing process;
  • read the previous conference proceedings;
  • contact the speakers or conference committee members indicated;
  • be suspicious about conference invitation emails that are marked as spam;
  • be suspicious about flattering conference invitations.
Responsible researcher choice of conferences is essential, however, it is not sufficient to address this challenge. International cooperation is crucial to stop this dangerous phenomenon.
The text is based on the following notes:
Journals