Future Conference Formats: Balancing Knowledge Dissemination, Socialising and Environmental Impacts
Tuesday, March 24 /15:00-16:30
Presentation
Academic conferences are important means for nurturing fields of research. They allow attendees to present and get feedback on the latest innovations and concepts. They create networking opportunities for people to establish new connections and rekindle existing ones. They enable research pollination that cuts across cultures, geographies and research groups. The predominant model for such annual conferences is a multi-day face-to-face meeting, and in many cases, this model has been used for decades.
There are, however, many challenges that have arisen over this time. These include increases in travel costs, more international travel restrictions (e.g., visas), pandemics, political unrest, and a growing understanding of the environmental impact of face-to-face conferences with 1000+ attendees. Our community could benefit from a re-examination and re-imagining by considering alternative formats for our annual academic conferences.
This panel will continue a panel discussion started at IEEE VR 2025 around alternative models for conferences, focusing mainly on our VR/AR/MR/XR community.
Discussion Topics
We would like to put out some topics to the audience for discussion, including things like:
- Challenges to Running Our Conferences
- Single-site In-person (current format) vs Multi-site In-person vs Fully Virtual
- Main Goals for Attendees of our ConferencesM.
- Expanding Attendee Inclusion/Access
Panellists
Rob Lindeman, University of Canterbury, NZ
Rob Lindeman is a Professor and Director of the Human Interface Technology Lab NZ (HIT Lab NZ) at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and has been doing research in the field of VR since 1993. His work focuses on immersive, multi-sensory feedback systems for VR, AR, gaming, and long-term VR immersion research. He is particularly interested in non-fatiguing, non-sickness-inducing and worry-free experiences. He currently serves on the Steering Committees of both IEEE VR and ACM VRST. He was General Chair of IEEE VR 2010, IEEE 3DUI 2014 and ACM VRST 2023.
Ferran Argelaguet, Inria, FR
Ferran Argelaguet is an Inria research scientist and the head of the Seamless Team at Inria Center at Rennes University. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2011. His current research activity focuses on the field of 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) which is a multidisciplinary research field involving Human Computer Interaction, Computer Graphics, Human Factors, Ergonomics and Human Perception. He served as co-chair at the previous IEEE VR 2025 conference that was organized in Saint Malo, France, which hosted more than 1200 international attendees, giving him a privileged view of the challenges of organizing IEEE VR.
Greg Welch, University of Central Florida, US
Dr. Greg Welch is a Professor at the University of Central Florida. Previously he was a research faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he has worked for NASA and Northrop. He is an IEEE Fellow, an NAI Fellow, and a member of the IEEE VR Academy. His awards include an IEEE VR Technical Achievement Award and a ISMAR Long Lasting Impact Paper Award. He has served as a General Co-Chair for IEEE ISMAR (2012) and IEEE VR (2013 and 2024). He is currently serving as the IEEE VGTC Vice Chair for Conferences.
Solène Lambert, Sorbonne Université, FR
Solène Lambert pursued her PhD in human-computer interaction at Sorbonne Université, focusing on surgical telementoring. In 2024, she organized a satellite experience in Paris, France, offering an opportunity for HCI researchers preferring not to travel to Hawai’i for ACM CHI 2024 to remotely "attend" the conference together.
Kyle Johnsen, University of Georgia, US
Kyle Johnsen serves as a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Georgia. He was a General Chair of IEEE Virtual Reality for 2020 and 2021, helping to lead one of the first major academic conferences to explore the myriads of models and collaboration tools required for global remote participation. Since that time, his lab has been creating, using and studying collaborative, immersive virtual and mixed reality environments for research meetings, events, and productivity, with the overarching goal to exploit the potential of ubiquitous VR headsets for engaging in-person, remote, and hybrid social experiences.
Anthony Steed, University College London, UK
Anthony Steed is Head of the Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics group in the Department of Computer Science at University College London. He has 30 years of experience in developing effective immersive experiences. While his early work focussed on the engineering of displays and software, more recently it has focussed on user engagement in and content production for collaborative and telepresence scenarios. He received the IEEE VGTC’s 2016 Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award. He has been involved in a variety of knowledge transfer activities, including five start-up companies.
