Ithaka S+R in partnership with JSTOR Labs has just released an interesting research report "Of Meetings and Members: The Interconnected Future of Conferences and Scholarly Societies" on the future of conferences and scholarly societies, and how these are interconnected. This work, with funding from the Alfred Sloan Foundation, discusses a series of conversations with a cohort of some 17 scholarly societies (both STEM and humanities/social sciences) about the the future shape of scholarly meetings (virtual, in-person, or various types of hybrid event) based substantially on experience navigating the pandemic and the immediate post-pandemic environment, and how choices here connect to the future roles, membership, and financial viability of scholarly societies.

See

Of Meetings and Members - Ithaka S+R

As the pandemic recedes into memory, societies find themselves at a crossroads. For several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it has now become a question of societies’ priorities, mission, and values. It is too early to tell whether the virtual meetings of 2020-22 were anomalies, but a casual observer might reasonably describe the “new normal” as nearly identical to the old one. A closer view suggests a more nuanced picture. In the aftermath ...

to view the report online or download it.

This is an area that CNI has also tracked closely during and after the pandemic (note that CNI's objectives and decisions in this area are somewhat different than those of a scholarly society, but that's another discussion for another time), and Ithaka has shared some of their earlier work in this area at our meetings over the past few years. See for example

CNI Fall 2021 Membership Meeting: COVID-19 and The Future of Scholarly Meetings

Dylan Ruediger, Ithaka S+R Danielle Cooper, Ithaka S+R Laura Brown, Ithaka S+R Watch the Video

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI