Every year, thousands of researchers lose money, time, and academic credibility by submitting to predatory conferences. These events mimic legitimate academic gatherings but exist solely to collect fees, with no meaningful peer review or scholarly value. This guide will help you recognise them before it is too late.
What Is a Predatory Conference?
A predatory conference is an event organised primarily to generate revenue through registration and publication fees, rather than to advance scholarly knowledge. Unlike legitimate conferences, they typically accept almost every submission regardless of quality, feature fabricated or non-consenting programme committee members, and produce proceedings with no indexing or meaningful archival value.
The term was popularised by librarian Jeffrey Beall, who maintained a list of predatory publishers and conferences until 2017. While that list is no longer maintained, the problem has grown significantly since then.
Why Predatory Conferences Are Dangerous
Publishing in a predatory venue can cause lasting harm to your academic career:
- Reputational damage: Colleagues and hiring committees recognise these venues. A CV listing predatory publications raises serious questions about your judgement.
- Wasted resources: Registration fees typically range from $300 to $1,000 or more. Travel costs add further.
- Copyright traps: Some predatory publishers retain copyright over your work, preventing you from publishing it elsewhere later.
- No indexing: The work disappears into an uncited void, contributing nothing to your research impact.
Red Flag #1: Unsolicited Email Invitations
Legitimate conferences do not typically send personalised cold emails inviting you to submit — especially to your institutional address scraped from a paper you co-authored. If you receive a flattering email calling you a "renowned scholar" and inviting you to speak or submit on short notice, treat it with extreme scepticism. The language is often generic, poorly written, or applies to an implausibly wide range of disciplines.
Red Flag #2: Implausibly Broad Scope
A conference titled "International Conference on Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine" covers so many fields that no legitimate academic community would organise it. Genuine conferences are narrow and specific. If the scope is broad enough to accept any paper from any discipline, it is almost certainly predatory.
Red Flag #3: Unusually Fast Review Turnaround
Peer review takes time. A serious conference requires at least four to eight weeks for review. If you submit a paper on Monday and receive an acceptance on Wednesday with no revision requests, the paper was not reviewed. Predatory conferences accept virtually everything — their business model depends on high volume, not quality.
Red Flag #4: Unverifiable Programme Committee
Check the names on the scientific or programme committee. Search each person on Google Scholar, LinkedIn, or their institutional page. Common findings with predatory conferences:
- Names that do not appear anywhere in academic databases
- Researchers who publicly deny being on the committee
- Committee members whose stated affiliations do not match LinkedIn or institutional records
- The same names appearing on dozens of unrelated conferences
A legitimate conference will have a verifiable committee of recognised specialists in the field.
Red Flag #5: Suspicious Venue Claims
Many predatory conferences name a prestigious city (London, Paris, New York) without specifying an actual venue, or they list a venue that turns out to be a modest hotel meeting room rather than a university or conference centre. Some conferences never physically take place at all — they collect fees and then "go virtual" at the last minute, or simply disappear.
Red Flag #6: No Verifiable Previous Editions
Check whether the conference has past proceedings. Search for previous editions by year. Legitimate conferences have a traceable history: past websites, proceedings on publisher platforms, photos, and attendee records. If you cannot find evidence of previous editions, the conference may be brand new and unproven — or nonexistent.
Red Flag #7: Promises of Scopus or SCI Indexing
"Proceedings will be submitted for Scopus indexing" is not the same as "proceedings are indexed in Scopus." Indexing is not guaranteed — it must be verified in advance. Check the Scopus source list directly. If the conference only promises future indexing, assume it will not materialise. Many predatory conferences make this promise and never deliver.
How to Verify a Conference Quickly
- Scopus source list: Download from scopus.com/sources and search for the conference series.
- DBLP (for computer science): dblp.org indexes legitimate CS conferences. If it is not there, be cautious.
- Google Scholar: Search for papers from previous editions. Legitimate conferences will have citable, linked proceedings.
- Cabells Predatory Reports: A paid database of known predatory outlets. Your institution may have access.
- Ask your supervisor or colleagues: Senior researchers in your field almost always know which venues are respected.
What to Do If You Already Submitted
If you realise you have submitted to a predatory conference after the fact:
- Withdraw your paper immediately by email, explicitly stating that you are withdrawing.
- If the paper has already been published in their proceedings, do not include it on your CV, or mark it clearly as a non-peer-reviewed preprint.
- Check the copyright transfer agreement — if you signed one, you may need legal advice before republishing.
The best protection is prevention: when in doubt, do not submit. Your time and work are too valuable to waste on a venue that will not advance your career.