Research culture: a survey of travel behaviour among scientists in Germany and the potential for change

Awareness of the environmental impact of conferences is growing within the scientific community. Here we report the results of a survey in which scientists in Germany were asked about their attendance at conferences, their reasons for attending, and their willingness to explore new approaches that would reduce the impact of conferences on the environment. A majority of respondents were keen to reduce their own carbon footprint and were willing to explore alternatives to the traditional conference.
Methods
Scientists travel across the globe to attend scientific conferences in their specialized research areas, for presentation of novel data, career development and networking. Concomitantly, scientists have the opportunity to drive societal change by taking a leading role in confronting climate change and promoting sustainability.   

Here we report the results of a survey of international scientists from all academic career stages with regard to their travels to scientific conferences in 2019 as well as their disposition for changing their traveling behaviour for sustainability reasons. The majority of surveyed scientists travel in a sustainable fashion, are willing to reduce their conferences travels for environmental protection and are open to alternative web-based conference formats. Changes in institutional policies granting sustainable framework conditions combinedwith the courage of leading scientists to set examples for innovative conference formats are needed to transform the scientific community and drive societal change.