Question: Why would it cost £500 to go to a conference,surely the money would be better donated to macmillian?

Louisa Chard answered on 23 Jun 2010:

Hi – good question! Unfortunately it does cost a lot of money to attend conferences, for the regstration fees and accomodation. I am actually funded by charities, as are a lot of scientists. At the moment I’m funded by cancer research uk, from July I will be funded by pancreatic cancer research fund. Like most of us, I don’t like using my budget to attand conferences as I want to use that money for experiments. However, conference attendance is a really important part of science – it helps share ideas and get more ideas and also help when trying to secure more funding for your research. Research funds lke to see that you are producing results that can be shared with the rest of the scientific community and that you are serious about publisising that research and learning more about your field that can help with future research. I hope this answers your question a bit. Also, we have to use the money to help communicate our work, which I can do at a conference.