Tuesday 30 November 2010

Conference attendance at what price?

How much does it cost to attend a conference, all in? If your boss is paying then you mightn't care. However, you need to have a figure in mind when you start writing grants because you need to budget it in. Want to go to one European and one international conference a year for three years? How much would that set you back?

I recently attended the German Conference on Cheminformatics in Goslar, and I determined that this time, at least, I would do my utmost (short of squabbling over the bill) to collect all relevant receipts as I had specific funding just for those costs.

Now, bearing in mind that Cork->Goslar is an indirect flight involving an overnight stay plus some train journeys here are the figures (rounded to the nearest 20 euro, E&OE):

Registration: 280
Poster: 60
Accommodation: 220
Trains: 100
Taxis: 60
Flights: 180
Food: 120

So, in or around 1000 euro. It does add up, doesn't it? Going to the ACS I would guesstimate at around 2.5 times this. Anyone got a better estimate?

2 comments:

Egon Willighagen said...

I'd say these numbers are pretty accurate... I did the ACS for 1800 in August, but got a hotel far, far away :) Framingham, only 30 min walk from commuter train :) But, the train did have free wireless to make up...

Unknown said...

Managed last years spring ACS (SF) for £2k, which I thought was pretty good