For researchers, attending conferences is a way of keeping up-to-date in your research field, by:
Some conference papers may be published in conference proceedings.
There are a number of opportunities to get assistance with funding to present at a conference.
The Secomb Conference and Travel Fund assists enrolled VU graduate research candidates to attend conferences to present a research paper. You can apply for up to half of the cost of travel and conference registration fees.
To be eligible for the fund at the time you submit your application and on the date the conference occurs you must:
Applications for funding must be submitted and approved before you attend the conference (retrospective applications will not be considered). There are three closing dates per year: 31 March, 31 July and 31 October.
You must submit your Secomb Application to researchscholarships@vu.edu.au by the relevant closing date.
Research Professional is available to VU research staff and provides a searchable list of research funding opportunities, both within Australia and overseas.
It is important for all researchers to be aware that, in a minority of cases, the conference advertised may not be legitimate. This is a relatively new phenomenon where 'predatory publishers' create fake conferences to raise revenue. For example, there was a recent case where a predatory publisher organised a conference using the exact same name as a legitimate conference on the same topic, a conference sponsored by a small and authentic scholarly society.
Though alarming, please be assured that it is a very small minority of conferences that can be assessed as fake. That said, you should always check for previous conferences of the same name, and investigate the conference organiser for authenticity.
If unsure, please contact your College Librarian to help with the investigation.
To fulfill Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) requirements the paper must meet the definition of research, according to the most recent specifications on the HERDC website. In addition:
If the conference paper is published in a journal it's better to enter it as a journal article.
For assistance with:
