Making the most of conference attendance

International conferences are an excellent way to get an up-to-date perspective of what is happening in your field and engage with decision makers and influential researchers across the globe. Conferences have been described as being“holiday, hot air and hubris” (Holstein, 2013), but are also an important part of an academic career (Houston, 2013). Conference-going experiences range from the spine-tingling excitement of hearing something, or meeting someone who will make a huge difference to your professional practice, or the cringe of seeing someone ruin their international reputation perhaps forever by ill-advised behavior.