Self-funding conferences

[Aloneinmanchester]

I work in an RG uni and we have just been told that our research budget has been halved (it's now only £500 per year) so effectively conference attendance (unless funded by a grant) is out of the question. Apparently this has already happened at other institutions and the people there are self-funding conference attendance, including overseas. I am really shocked that people would do this. Maybe I am not dedicated enough to my career but fuck me, no way am I paying hundreds to stay in some mediocre hotel in the arse end of nowhere to speak for 20 minutes and 'network' with a bunch of people that I don't like anyway. I already feel underpaid and overworked but I am actually shocked that people do this.

I am with you on that one! Our conference budget is 650 at the moment, which is enough for a UK conference or a European one with low conference fees. Last year I went to Naples for a great conference - funding was sufficient for flights, hotel, food etc, but if they had charged fees (they had funding allowing them to make the conference free) that wouldn't have be possible. Like you, I would never self-fund a conference, unless it was perhaps few quid on top of my funding to pay for food. And in particular not overseas, unless I had a private interest to go there anyway - say, a close relative / friend lives in the city. Unfortunately, this is yet another thing which will disadvantage certain groups of people from progressing, as networking / citizenship / taking up positions in special interest groups etc. is valued in promotion criteria.

Glad I’m not the only one! I might be able to stretch to a UK one if I drive there and stay for one night at the travelodge but our conference fees alone tend to be about £400. You are right that it discriminates against certain groups. I have colleagues who have independent wealth and are happy to plough that into going to conferences. I can’t and won’t do that.

Way back as a PG student I was invited to speak at a conference in Europe. I was delighted - until I found out there would be no money from anyone and only key note speakers got paid invitations. I paid - and I had just the best time. I've never been to a conference and enjoyed it so much - maybe first conferences are like first loves!

Few years later I was invited again, Europe again, forked out and paid myself. Then followed UK conferences which were paid and a couple more in Europe that I paid myself - but then decided I would not pay to do that again. Fee + room + flights etc you're lucky to get change out of 1000 quid.

Now in this job, I finally have 1000/year for conferences and I thoroughly intend to spend it. I'm going next week in fact, and plan to go next year but I will need to top it up a bit for that one.

It's really, really common to pay your conference costs (even RG/Oxbridge). It definitely does discriminate against people with less money - especially students (I'm hoping to find funding for one of mine next year). But sometimes it's worth it if you can manage it and get enough from it.

Are you folk in arts? I've never had a 'conference budget' or 'research budget' provided to me, in STEM. It's assumed I'll get everything off a grant. Including a computer for me and my students. Makes it really difficult in those periods I have no outside funding. We do have some one-off funding you can apply for, but only for pump-priming research, and doesn't cover conferences or computers.

Underfunded Social Sciences subject where staff generally don't have huge grant funding. The kind of subject that has faced lots cuts lately....

social sciences. It’s not the same with funding in those areas - we don’t get grants in the same way that the sciences do (and our courses are super cheap to run and we have loads of students, so we prop up those departments running lab based courses which cost more). We used to have £1000 which isn’t loads but did at least cover a conference each year.

I'm in a fuzzy cross over humanities/STEM area but not so many grants as proper STEM.

We have £700 (used to be £500 until a few years ago), RG university. I work in a subject which requires archival research and it doesn't come close to covering that, never mind going to a conference. So I never go to conferences. But I do often end up funding my archival research (often on another continent, so not cheap) out of my own pocket.

STEM at RG - no fund other than from the grants i get, when i get them.
i usually serve on committees or get invited when i don t have money. I d never pay out of my own pocket, and usually prefer local small group workshops to big conferences.

also STEM at RG. my first uni had £600 year or so per lecturer for 'discretionary funding' which could cover computers / conferences / research expenses / whatever. second university has £0 per year (despite being richer) but does provide more funding in other ways.

I have self-funded conferences occasionally, mainly because I enjoy them. I sometimes part-fund, in that the grant pays the flights & hotel but I often fail to claim back food & taxi etc. I'm lucky that I can afford it, and then I can keep my research budget for other things.

We used to have £500 a year, but that was cut in the last couple of years. (In fact I know my current dept used to have £1k a year allowance each pre-covid)

I'm on probation and one of my requirements is to present my work at international level conferences, so it now feels like pay up personally or face arguing that condition when we're already facing mass redundancies, or defend my inability to get external funders to pay my costs.

I had to pull out of one conference that would have been great at the last minute when cuts were confirmed as I just couldn't cover the cost myself, which was embarrassing and damaging.

I managed to get some funds to go to a conference this summer but just to cover one day's attendance, no travel or accomdation. 14 hour day for a 20 minute talk, I missed all the networking as I had to leave as soon as the last talk finished and my morning train was cancelled so I missed the arrival drinks etc, it was miserable.

Over the years I've had a combination of paying it all myself, scraping together bits of cash from various pots, paying some of the costs myself, having a personal research allowance, to a couple of random fully funded conferences at luxury venues which included free day trips and expensive gift bags.

I was chatting to DH the other week about the fact it used to be normal to just go to conferences you weren't speaking at to keep up with the field, now not only is that rare but I've noticed more and more that speakers are either PhD students or Profs - we guessed noone else has the time or funding to do the research and the travel now.

Its a big shift in the culture, and not a good one.

I feel as if there are a lot less conferences being organised in the present climate (my discipline is English literature), given the precarity the sector is facing. Cutbacks in funding, existing teaching pressures and a reduced appetite to spend time/energy on what can be a laborious exercise when it comes to organising such events seem to be factors.

The last one I organised was entirely online. People prefer to spend their limited allowances on archival work.

It’s reassuring I’m not the only one but it is frustrating and worrying. Especially so when attendance is a criteria for promotion or passing probations. That is unacceptable to set a target that can only be met by people spending their own money.

All allowances has been cut to nothing this year—it was £750. I need to be in archives (abroad) for research. I’ve spent thousands over the years self-funding. I’ve been quite successful with grants, but that still doesn’t cover everything. I know my colleagues do the same.

I've paid my own travel to UK stuff, no more than about £150 though and wouldn't go beyond that.

When I've got no budget, I look for free online ones, but inevitably they're not the prestigious ones and also not great for networking as you just go to the sessions and that's it.

I'm exactly the same as you, OP.

I won't spend a penny of my own money on doing my job. It's absolute madness to me that people in academia do this so readily. I work to get paid - I can't get my head around the idea of me paying to do my job. Bonkers.

I'm a volunteer and have to pay for my own travel to attend a specific conference arranged by those who organise the work! If I wanted to stay as well, I'd have to pay for a hotel.

I pay because it does inform the volunteering work I do for them and I like to do something to the best of my ability. I'm surprised so many of us attended though given the COL crisis.

Things have changed!

Love the username. Right? I already feel that I am underpaid. As if I would then spend my wages on travelling to a conference that I am literally only attending because I have to for my job. I was talking to someone recently who said he dropped about a grand and a half on fees and accommodation for a US conference and then didn’t even go (as a Trump-protest 🙄) and lost most of it. This was in a casual conversation and he didn’t seem to think this was odd behaviour in the least. I just nodded politely and was inwardly thinking are you actually fucking insane.

No allowances here. I'm attending free ones but having to cover any transport or accommodation costs

We have just been told we are retaining our generous £750 per year. Will go to a one day one in the UK which is free, but approx. £200 for a day's accommodation + train + other stuff. Leaves £550 to hopefully go to a cheap EU gig somewhere. Ryanair, here I come!

We don’t have a set fund but have to appeal to management and rely on them finding £ down the back of the sofa, as it were. I feel like the norm here (post 92) is a European conference biannually. I pay my own up to £40 if I know I’ll see good friends there. Otherwise, fuck that!

I agree completely that international conferences are very much still required for probation and promotion. Sustainability concerns mean there are more online options. At least I can make my own crap cheese sandwich at home then!

Except that the University's travel agent does not offer flights on budget airlines. Not to mention that, if you can reach a European destination within 6 hours by train, my university expects us to pay the significantly more expensive fare to do so, rather than get on a plane. That £750 doesn't go very far.

The whole thing is madness.

I think we are still ok to take budget airlines and take a flight instead of a train if under six hours... I think! The university has recently changed their travel agent. so I might be wrong. But yes, accept it is a mad world.

On the issue of travel agents/—Sussex University doesn’t use a travel agent. I recently had to pay for my own hotel and flights, and then reclaim the costs. I thought all of that was in the past!