PLOS Scientific Conferences

PLOS Scientific Conferences
Name	PLOS Scientific Conferences
Type	Conference series
Founded	2014
Founder	Public Library of Science
Headquarters	San Francisco
Area served	International
Products	Academic conferences
Website	PLOS Conferences

PLOS Scientific Conferences

PLOS Scientific Conferences was a series of scholarly meetings convened by the Public Library of Science to promote open science, open access, and community-led research exchange. The conferences brought together researchers, funders, publishers, and advocates from diverse domains to discuss reproducibility, data sharing, and novel communication models across life sciences, medicine, and allied fields. Programs regularly featured workshops, keynote lectures, and poster sessions aimed at accelerating innovation and reforming publication practices.

Overview

PLOS Scientific Conferences aimed to bridge stakeholders such as Public Library of Science, Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and National Institutes of Health with members from institutions like Harvard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Cambridge. Sessions frequently involved collaborations with societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, European Molecular Biology Organization, Royal Society, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and Gordon Research Conferences. Prominent participants included representatives from Nature (journal), Science (journal), eLife, BioRxiv, CrossRef, ORCID, and Creative Commons. The conferences emphasized interoperability with infrastructures led by DataCite, Dryad (repository), Figshare, Zenodo, and OpenAIRE.

History and Development

The initiative grew out of community dialogues following landmark events like the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, and the expansion of PLoS ONE. Early meetings referenced policy shifts driven by funders such as the European Commission and programs like Plan S while responding to controversies including cases examined in Retraction Watch and debates illustrated by the STAP cells scandal. Founding leadership included figures associated with PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine, and advocacy networks connected to SPARC (organization), Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, and COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). Over successive editions, agenda items adapted to emergent topics evidenced by reports from National Academy of Sciences, Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), and white papers from Institute of Medicine.

Organization and Governance

Governance structures reflected partnerships among funders and academic organizers, drawing on advisory input from boards with members affiliated with European Research Council, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, National Science Foundation, Max Planck Society, and National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Program committees solicited speakers via invitations to leaders from World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Broad Institute, and Sanger Institute. Operational logistics leveraged event services experienced with venues like Moscone Center, ExCeL London, and Palais des Congrès de Paris, while procurement and scheduling adhered to guidelines produced by institutions such as Stanford Medicine and University College London. Financial oversight integrated grants from entities including Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and NIH Office of Extramural Research.

Conference Models and Formats

Programming mixed traditional formats—plenary talks by leaders from Francis Crick Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Kaiser Permanente, and CERN—with experimental sessions inspired by formats developed at TED Conferences, SXSW, Davos, and AAAS Annual Meeting. Workshops often incorporated hands-on tutorials led by teams from Galaxy Project, Bioconductor, EMBL-EBI, NCBI, and European Bioinformatics Institute. Poster and lightning talk sessions paralleled mechanisms used by Society for Neuroscience, American Chemical Society, and International Society for Computational Biology, while hackathons adopted models from Mozilla Science Lab and Software Carpentry. Peer review of conference submissions mirrored community review experiments seen at F1000Research and eLife Innovation.

Impact and Reception

The series influenced policy dialogues at venues such as European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, and consultative processes for Plan S and NIH public access policy. Coverage and critique appeared in outlets including Nature (journal), Science (journal), The Lancet, BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), and commentary via Retraction Watch and Scholarly Kitchen. Evaluations cited alignment with initiatives from Open Science Framework, Center for Open Science, Reproducibility Project, and Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), while also drawing scrutiny from stakeholders associated with Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley-Blackwell. Citations to conference proceedings appeared in reports by National Academy of Medicine, Royal Society policy briefings, and grant narratives submitted to Wellcome Trust and NIH.

Accessibility, Open Practice, and Licensing

Accessibility commitments aligned with licensing models advanced by Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY), outreach to disability advocates linked to World Health Organization, and repository deposition practices consistent with DataCite and ORCID integration. Materials were typically shared under open licenses compatible with Creative Commons, and organizers emphasized data management planning in line with mandates from European Research Council and National Institutes of Health. Efforts to broaden participation engaged programs affiliated with Bridge2AI, Global Young Academy, African Academy of Sciences, Latin American and Caribbean Network of Science Organizations, and capacity-building partners such as Carnegie Mellon University and University of Cape Town.

Category:Scientific conferences