Conferences
22. -23. June 2023, a controversial organizer planned for no less than 2,280 conferences in Oslo. “Sheer deception,” warns the professor.
– Oh, I didn’t know that.
Professor Jørn Klein of the University of South Eastern Norway (USN) was surprised when Gronow called to find out why he was named on the list for next year’s anesthesiology conference.
Listed as one of the committee members for one person “International Anesthesia Congress” Which will be held in Oslo in 2023.
Professor Klein has expertise in microbiology, epidemiology, hygiene and infection control, and during the Corona pandemic he was often used as a source in the media. But he says he knows very little about anesthesia.
The conference is not the only one. From 22 to 23 June next year, large-scale scientific conferences will be organized in Oslo under the auspices of the controversial organization World Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Technology (Wasit).
The number is so great that we have to use the tool Tools To know that Wasit organizes no less than 2,280 conferences in Oslo over two days in June. They are all correctly listed as digital conferences on the organizer’s website.
“This undermines scientific seriousness and damages the reputation of the institutions we belong to,” Klein says.
– Destroyer
Professor Peder Anker at New York University was shocked to discover the huge number of conferences to be organized in June of next year.
– I recently wrote an article on environmental history and wanted to find a conference outside the usual conferences where I know everyone and talk to the same people. When I searched on Google, I found these conferences in Oslo and was completely shocked, says the professor of history of science, who stated that he did not sign up.
“Conferences are complete nonsense, but a paper here and there may be OK, but nothing more than acceptable,” he says.
This is not the first time that Wasit plays the big drum and organizes conferences on a large scale. Search forum Discuss a similar situation in 2019. At that time, Wasit had to arrange 1,550 conferences with the same program, at the same time and in the same room.
It turned out to be a two hour conference in a conference room at Smarthotel Oslo.
“It’s devastating because it makes noise and it’s easy to fool you,” Anker says.
He explains how such conferences can have dire consequences.
– I am often a member of different committees where I evaluate applications for different positions. Wherever I work, we are encouraged to think outside the box about such processes to bring in new perspectives outside the Ivy League world from people who have attended conferences or written for journals I don’t know. Then, CV conferences like this can be rowdy where you don’t have time to check every detail and end up cheating, Anker says.
Requires 450 EUR
The price for participation in the Oslo conferences ranges from 450 euros to 250 euros. The highest amount required is through “oral registration/poster presenter for non-students”, while students have to pay 350€. If you just want to participate, the so-called “listener registration” will cost you 250 euros.
Wasit is one of the organizers who got a lot of attention when an international drilling group of journalists analyzed 175,000 science articles from five of the biggest fake science platforms into a major project called ‘false science’.
German non-profit research organization Max Planck Society He had already gone out and called Wasit a predatory publisher.
Aftenpostensvada journalists, among others, participated in the Waset conference in Austria in 2018 with an article written by advanced svada creator Scigen that cuts and pastes research articles in computer science without context.
At the time, an estimated 40-50 people attended the conference, and Aftenposten can tell of a number of frustrated academics who realized the conference wasn’t what they imagined.
Khrono tried to contact him through the organization’s website. We have asked here about the validity of the conferences and why Yorn Klein was included as part of a committee of which he was unaware.
The organization did not respond to Khrono’s inquiry.
– Part of a cheat market
Klein would have liked to see the leaders of Norwegian universities more clearly at the fore in the fight against “pseudoscience”.
Protecting the reputation of science is an administrative responsibility. For a researcher, it can be bad to associate it with pseudoscience in this way, and then it is very important that university leaders notice this and do something about it, he says.
Professor of Biology at the University of Oslo (UiO), Dag O. Hessen, wrote a book called Truth for Sale on the problem of ‘pseudo science’. For him, this is a familiar phenomenon.
– I get two or three offers a day to participate in such conferences or submit articles on anything. This is part of a cheat market that can remind us of pirate magazines, he says.
Some shows may contain elements of professionalism, but many of the workers are motivated by money, according to Hessen.
– First of all, it is about winnings and money, where the professional aspect is secondary.
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