OMICS Group conferences are still to be avoided at all costs

Regrettably, my most popular post of the week is pretty much always: OMICS Group Conferences - Sham or Scam? (Either way, don’t go to one!) [I’d much rather it was one of the evolution posts - maybe Artificial Selection versus Natural Selection.]

A few weeks back, I was contacted by an ABC journalist doing an investigation of OMICS Group conferences, which have been trying to break into the Australian market. The show, Predatory publishers criticised for ‘unethical, unprincipled’ tactics, is fully available (complete with transcript) and an interesting, disturbing and upsetting in equal measure.

In the end, I declined to do an on-the-record interview - as another anonymous academic on the show said:

“Having been duped, it is somewhat embarrassing and you don’t really want to wave that around too much on national radio. Yes, I don’t want to be known as someone who was so easily drawn in.”

Nevertheless, I am still glad that I wrote the post. Predatory publishers and conferences are a scourge on academia and need to be exposed. Hopefully, Hagar Cohen’s ABC show will help. (They seem to know their brand is toxic and now avoid using it in emails - but they are still easy to spot!)