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I want to know if it is ethical to present the same paper in two different conferences, where the conference that is to be held earlier does not publish in it any journal/conference proceedings, while other conference will publish it in a conference proceedings.

The field is mathematics.

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  • Short answer: No
    – Ébe Isaac
    Jul 30, 2016 at 12:27
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    In my experience in "pure" mathematics: this should normally be fine. You may wish to check with the second conference, i.e. the one which will publish the paper in a conference proceedings, just to make sure that they are OK with you presenting the same paper somewhere else
    – Yemon Choi
    Jul 30, 2016 at 13:21
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    In mathematics, perhaps a better measure of the stuff is not "paper" but "idea". So, sure, it's fine to talk about the same idea more than once, all the more if it's a good idea, people want to hear about it, and you have new audiences (as opposed to repeating to the same people) or are making progress. The commodified "how many papers?" viewpoint is not mandatory.
    – paul garrett
    Jul 30, 2016 at 14:50

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The issue is highly field-dependent. In computer science, it's probably still considered highly unethical, but in my field—chemical engineering, where papers are not normally "published"—presenting the same talk in multiple venues is not normally considered a problem. Other fields lie somewhere in between.

I think that, regardless of the ethical dilemma, the issue is that the more likely you are to have overlap between the two audiences who will hear your talk, the less you want to give the same talk—even if it's ethical to do so. At the very least, you should have enough new material in the later talk that it's worth the audience's time to hear the second version if they've already heard it at the first conference.

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    That's not quite true about CS. If one of the conferences does not have archival proceedings, it's usually fine. The ethical issue in CS is double publication, not double presentation.
    – Lev Reyzin
    Apr 21, 2015 at 17:19
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"The ethical issue in CS is double publication, not double presentation" ... I think the same is true in mathematics.

Way back, a year or so after my Ph.D., I proved a certain result. I submitted it to a journal. Then I was invited to 2 or 3 conferences, where I was expected to talk about that result.

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I agree that's not unethical to present the same study for different audiences. But no to publish or try to publish the same paper in several publications. Editors does not allow and I agree.

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