Is it normal for academics to pay conference fee themselves?

Question

I am invited to present in a session at a conference, and the conference requires presenters to pay the registration fee themselves. I usually will have some research grant/ travel fund to cover the registration fee; however, this year, I don't have any financial support from my institution. The conference is extensive and usually has lots of great talks in previous years, so I think it's a good idea to attend. And it's a big event so that I can promote my work and it's suitable for my key performance indicator (KPI) too. However, the fee is not small, and I don't know if it is normal for early career researchers to pay for these events themselves. If I pay, does it make me look bad because I feel like it shows that I failed to get research support?

Edit: thank you everyone for the answers! I should clarify that I only consider paying myself because it’s a virtual conference and so I don’t have worry about travel cost. While I know that virtual conferences don’t bring as much benefit as in-person events, it’s still not as easy as before the pandemic to travel, and I consider this as a way to get some interactions with people in the field. But I do agree that I should only do this at most a few times.

Answer 1

@Roland made an important point in a comment that was later removed.

In most cases you pay by yourself by some means, and then get reimbursed ("repaid"). As the reimbursement is between you and your university, no-one at the conference knows that you will not be reimbursed.

Answer 2

It is not that normal--but also not completely rare. I know of several who did this (including myself). But you can pay for yourself without anyone knowing this! Indeed, conferences do not gather information on the funding sources of participants.

Hence, your problem is solved.

Answer 3

This happens all the time. Many academics travel a bit more than their research budgets allow. Most registration fees are paid by the participant directly and then the participant applies for reimbursement. A cumbersome system that can cause problems, but it does mean nobody knows how much you end up paying yourself.

Answer 4

No one will know that you paid yourself, since most people pay in advance out of their own pocket and then get reimbursement from the institution or funding source.

However, even if it's not unheard of, I think that paying for a conference yourself without reimbursement is highly, highly problematic. I would never do it myself, and I actually refused to pay out of my pocket much smaller work-related expenses.

For many, me included, research is a lifelong passion, but one must also remember that it's a job. And all work-related expenses must be paid by the employer.

Answer 5

As other answers have made clear, nobody else attending the conference will have any idea whether you were reimbursed by a grant or your institution for your travel expenses or if you're attending on your own dime.

Note that some conferences have some funds available to support early career researchers (although this funding is often limited to students):

• https://www.aps.org/meetings/events/futurephysics/travelgrants.cfm
• https://www.scipy2022.scipy.org/financial-aid

Answer 6

This is not particularly common, but certainly not unheard of. Universities will fund conference travel for their faculty up to an extent, and subject to approval in specific cases, but sometimes these applications for funding are not successful and the academic decides to go anyway, on their own dime. Some important points to note about this situation:

• If your institution assigns Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your work then they have an obligation to give you what you need to acheive those KPIs. It's not clear from your question exactly what the relevant KPI here is, but if it requires you to attend a conference, and they are not willing to fund that, they cannot reasonably assess you adversely on that KPI later. If your university will not fund your conference travel, but expects you to deliver a conference talk as a KPI, they are effectively setting you a work task that is impossible to achieve without your own personal funding. In employment law, impossible work tasks leading into adverse performance reviews are often interpreted as a form of bullying and unreasonable management (again, depending on relevant laws in your jurisdiction). If you are in this type of situation, have a calm and reasonable conversation with your boss on the problem to see what can be done. (At minimum, they might reduce your KPIs to conform more appropriately to your funding situation.)

• Some conferences may allow a discounted fee in some cases when they are dealing with academics who lack funding, particularly if they are early-career researchers. This is certainly not guaranteed, but it is something that you could write to the conference organisers to inquire about. Many big conferences take a long-term view where they hope to attract younger poorly-funded academics who will later be older better-funded academics. If you think this is a possibility, write to the conference organisers, tell them your circumstances, and see if they can offer you a lower fee for attendance.

• If you are self-funding for an academic conference that relates to your work then it is probably the case that the expenses you incur are tax deductible as a work-related expense (depending on specific tax laws in your jurisdiction). This means that the costs will usually come out of your pre-tax income instead of post-tax income (so it will end up a little cheaper than it might otherwise be). Make sure you keep all relevant receipts for your costs and consult advice at tax time about claiming these costs as work expenses.

Answer 7

In mathematics, in the U.S., in the past, the idea was that one had grant funding to pay for travel and lodging at conferences (from NSF, for example), or, if one was in "invited speaker", the conference would pay for one's expenses. (Still, in most cases, one had to pay, and then get reimbursed...)

This has created an unfortunate model, in which one's home university most often does not consistently pay for conference expenses. You're supposed to get grants to pay for it yourself. In some cases, I've seen (limited) funding of grad students to go to conferences.

On another hand, as in other answers and comments, no one will know the ultimate source of your funding for the conference.

So, operationally/practically, yes, probably a person needs to go to conferences... and cannot expect to have these expenses paid... though no one will know if you pay from your own funds.

(Mild irony that more severe pandemic times made the economics of conference attendance more egalitarian... For that matter, even ignoring money, I'm ever less enthusiastic about going to airports, sitting in airplanes, figuring out taxis, etc., just to give or hear talks that would scarcely have been different by Zoom...)

Answer 8

Don't forget there are other fees for attending a conference, beyond the registration fee. Things like air fare, hotels, food etc. If you don't have funding for the conference fee I expect you don't have funding for the other stuff. Depending where the conference is, the other costs can add up to be alot more than the conference fee itself. So that is something to keep in mind if you are self funding a trip to a conference.