Great advice for any PhD student or researcher!
Do you have any other valuable advice? How about just give up and quit your job? It would have the same effect.
Do you have any other valuable advice? How about just give up and quit your job? It would have the same effect.
If by "it would have the same effect" you mean that it will be ignored, then maybe. But if you are saying that not attending international conferences is the same as not getting a job as a researcher in the first place, then I find this an exaggeration. Especially considering that one can participate in the scientific process by submitting their papers to journals, and that every country, including those in the Global South, can have their own conferences.
What you may refer to is prestige. But that's a separate matter altogether.
Also, many of the top publishing venues in CS are conferences, and it is not uncommon for them to require in-person presentations as a condition for acceptance.
So, in sum, if you want to have a scientific career, attending conferences in the US/Europe is almost a must, at least in CS.
Yes. A little bit. Though not in CS.
> You’re going to be at a severe disadvantage compared to peers in the US
> ...
> if you want to have a scientific career
What does having a scientific career mean to you? Are there universities outside of the global North? Do people hold positions in those universities? Is there any research work happening there? Can someone get a place there without travelling around the world? If the answer to these questions is yes, then how is it not a scientific career?
(I am not trying to compare the salary of a professor in a US university with one from a university in global South. I am simply curious about the blank statements "How about just give up and quit your job" or "if you want to have a scientific career").
This is not due to any difference in the inherent quality of the researchers, but due to (IMO) a lack of resources. This falls into two categories:
The first is the lack of a high-expertise peer/mentor community. Historically most research communities have centered in US/Europe. So even getting advice and mentorship is much more difficult, and the difficulty is exacerbated if you can't travel to conferences. Even if you manage to become established in your field, if you're not travelling to conferences and networking with other top researchers, you won't be privy to new research directions and questions, won't be able to take part in collaborations on interesting research projects, and won't have as productive a career as your colleagues in the global North. This also leads to a feedback loop (your research isn't exciting → you don't get to go to conferences to participate in research conversations → your research isn't exciting, and so on). In the end, the process of doing science is a social phenomenon, and you can't sequester yourself in your own country and expect to be a good researcher working on interesting problems.
The second category of resources is funding. The pool of money available for research is just much smaller in the global South, and makes certain kinds of research just impossible (think big distributed systems research, GPU-heavy ML research, etc.) So if you want to do that kind of research, you can't really stay in your home country.
I am not making this claim at all.
> So if you want to do that kind of research, you can't really stay in your home country.
I remain puzzled by this statement.
I could understand the argument if it were phrased like so: "The best science in field X is done in countries Y and Z; I want to be part of the cutting-edge top-level research; therefore, I want to go to country Y or Z". Or if it were phrased like this: "Best-paying jobs in field X are concentrated in countries Y and Z; I want to get a top-paying job; therefore, I want to go to country Y or Z". But your argument is structured differently. You are claiming that if you want to do research in field X; indeed, if you want to have a career in field X, you cannot stay in your home country. What I do not understand is whether there is any research in field X done in your home country? Are there any departments in any universities at all in your home country specialising in field X? They may be third-rate; but do they exist? If they exist, then there must be someone working there, right? If that is the case, you cannot very well make an argument that one cannot be a researcher in field X, or have a career in field X without leaving the country.