Question
Asked 9th Jul, 2013

Dubious conference invitations. Just spam, or do these meetings actually take place?

A routine weekly task by now is the deletion of probably bogus conference invitations (as speaker, session chair etc). I receive them not only for topics matching my research interests but also for completely unrelated topics and fields. I'm probably not the only one experiencing this. While it could simply be dismissed as spam, I ask myself whether these conferences and meetings actually take place.

Most recent answer

14th Nov, 2017
Jonathan H Clarke
University of Cambridge
Having recently fallen foul of a predatory conference organising company I am compelled to add to this blog and advise any researcher to avoid conferenceseries.com (also contactable (?) under 'dementia@neuroconferences.org'; 'dementia@conferenceseries.net' or 'dementia@neuroconferences.com'). This is not a bogus front - the conference was organised (in fact two were running simultaneously in the same venue), however only 4 of the 26 organised speakers turned up, none of the poster presenters and a handful of delegates. None of the scientific organising committee or session chairs were present, and when they were contacted they either were unaware that they were involved in the conference, or had been approached a year ago and had then heard nothing more from the organisers. Of course the company will not reply to any correspondence. According to their website they run dozens of conferences a year, probably all as badly organised. They seem to be owned by the OMICS consortium and judging by other contributors should be avoided at all costs.

Popular answers (1)

10th Jul, 2013
Björn Thrandur Björnsson
University of Gothenburg
These bogus and predatory conference invitations are becoming just as common as invitations to publish in bogus and predatory OA journals. I'd say that I get such mails for both journals and conferences on a daily basis.
Jeffrey Beall is a university librarian who has compiled a list of predatory journals - a list which has become known as the "Beall's list" http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
Beall has recently started turning his attention to predatory conferences, and wrote a blog on the "Entomology-2013" conference hosted by the OMICS group, a conference with near identical name to the one the Entomological Society of America (ESA) uses for their annual conference, "Entomology 2013" (did you spot the difference in names?). After writing this blog http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/ the India-based OMICS group threatened to sue Beall for 1 B$ http://chronicle.com/article/Publisher-Threatens-to-Sue/139243/.
One of the reasons these conferences are fake, even if they are actually held is what Beall writes: "First, OMICS implies that its editorial board members are conference organizers by placing their names and photographs on their conference web pages, and by sending email invitations to their meetings which are “signed” by members of the editorial boards. However, many of these people never agreed to be meeting organizers, and some have never even agreed to be become OMICS editorial board members".
94 Recommendations

All Answers (972)

9th Jul, 2013
Dariush Hinderberger
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Markus,
I believe that (at least most of) these conferences do take place. In some countries, especially in Asia, there is a flourishing industry of companies that organize broadly based conferences to make money from it.
Best,
Dariush
2 Recommendations
10th Jul, 2013
Robert H. Eibl
Universität Heidelberg
Hi Markus,
I am not getting this many invitations, but since a few years it seems I get a similar invitation to China. I was flattered first to become a session chair, but I had to learn they wanted me to pay about thousand USD for participating - so, now with your question, I am not even sure if those conferences really exist.
On the other hand, I know of some, really existing, mid-european (for example, Austrian) conferences, where at least some of the "invited speakers" on the list are usually also asked to pay their participating fee.
Best,
Robert
3 Recommendations
10th Jul, 2013
Björn Thrandur Björnsson
University of Gothenburg
These bogus and predatory conference invitations are becoming just as common as invitations to publish in bogus and predatory OA journals. I'd say that I get such mails for both journals and conferences on a daily basis.
Jeffrey Beall is a university librarian who has compiled a list of predatory journals - a list which has become known as the "Beall's list" http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
Beall has recently started turning his attention to predatory conferences, and wrote a blog on the "Entomology-2013" conference hosted by the OMICS group, a conference with near identical name to the one the Entomological Society of America (ESA) uses for their annual conference, "Entomology 2013" (did you spot the difference in names?). After writing this blog http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/ the India-based OMICS group threatened to sue Beall for 1 B$ http://chronicle.com/article/Publisher-Threatens-to-Sue/139243/.
One of the reasons these conferences are fake, even if they are actually held is what Beall writes: "First, OMICS implies that its editorial board members are conference organizers by placing their names and photographs on their conference web pages, and by sending email invitations to their meetings which are “signed” by members of the editorial boards. However, many of these people never agreed to be meeting organizers, and some have never even agreed to be become OMICS editorial board members".
94 Recommendations
10th Jul, 2013
Markus Rehm
Universität Stuttgart
Thanks for the info, Bjorn. Lots of reading material. I was familiar with the Beall list but wasn't aware of his blog on conferences. The comment section of the blog is quite a shocking account of what is going on.
2 Recommendations
18th Jan, 2014
Jeanne Pawitan
University of Indonesia
When I got an invitation like Markus, I asked for registration fee waiver, airplane tickets and accommodation, and they did not contact me further. So I regarded the conference as predatory, like Mr Beall said.
About Mr Beall's list, some parts are true, as there are many predatory journals, but there are also a lot that do not deserve to be in his list.
However, recently, there are many websites that discredited Mr Beall, here are some:
I tried to paste websites like this into Mr beall's website, but unfortunately they are removed, instead of defending himself.
This make me think that maybe all this counter-webs contain true information, and Mr Beall does not want that the whole world know about it.
5 Recommendations
23rd Jan, 2015
Nodirali S. Normakhamatov
Tashkent Pharmaceutical Institute
It is very bad that these type of invitations to the fake conference or publish in their journals become more and more popular. Some unexperienced researchers are having really big problems believing them. I do not know an optimal variant of determining their falsification but can share my experiences on them. When you receive their e-mail, pay attention for the sender email address. Usually, non-official accounts (from gmail, yahoo and others) are first sign to a caution. Even they hide their account by any official domain, you can check real IP address of sender. Also, please, pay attention for the reply address. Usually, it is different from sender address. Finally, carefully check their conferences web page, if there is not any mistakes or changing the letters, like conference and confference.
3 Recommendations
1st Feb, 2015
M. Shokry Abdelaal
University of South Australia
may i ask you about the case of Wessex Institute of Technology(WIT)?do you have any idea about this conferences organizing university?
1 Recommendation
2nd Feb, 2015
Nodirali S. Normakhamatov
Tashkent Pharmaceutical Institute
Dear Shokry,
I absolutely do not know WIT conferences but in this case I always search from Internet some comments if they are somewhere. Please, read these comments and make decision as you want :) 
1 Recommendation
13th Feb, 2015
Patompong Ungprasert
Cleveland Clinic
I recieve this kind of emails on a daily basis too. Very annoying.
2 Recommendations
13th Feb, 2015
Robert H. Eibl
Universität Heidelberg
Yes, during the last few weeks, these invitations annoy me also much more frequently, almost on a daily basis as well.
1 Recommendation
24th Jun, 2015
Ram Samudrala
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
 I've attended a few of the OMICS group and Zing conference series and I've generally found them okay (and yes, they are held, at least the ones in the US). They're not at the top end of star power but I think all sincere efforts should be supported and they've been around a while. In many cases, it's pay to play but it's the same with publication and page charges. 
I get spam from respected publishers, even Nature, if I end up on some mailing list accidentally. 
1 Recommendation
24th Jun, 2015
Robert H. Eibl
Universität Heidelberg
@Ram Samudrala - I think there is still a certain difference between getting on a mailing list from more "respected publishers" - and getting unwanted meeting invitations from anyone just because they got your email address from a recent publication. To me this is like a repetitive cold call. I once tried to ask for, if I remember right, 10.000 USD for compensating the flights and having me as session chair. They offered a "reduced" participation fee, but no compensations for travel time and talk, but continue to spam me regularly. I am sure, any serious conference committee or respected publishers would immediately stop spamming, when asked, since spamming might not be legal in most countries.
4 Recommendations
9th Jul, 2015
John Leicester Williams
The University of Memphis
If you look at the conference web site and cannot find an address or email contact or recognizable (or web-searchable) name for the organization that is sponsoring the conference this should be a red flag. Here are some WASET (World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology) conferences where I found myself listed as conference committee member and that I know absolutely nothing about. Since there is no address or email contact it is not easy to contact whoever is behind these conference postings. One has to register with one of these in order to even communicate with them and they have so far refused to remove my name from these despite my requests:
ICAMCM 2017 : 19th International Conference on Applied Mathematics and Computational Mechanics. London, United Kingdom, April 24 - 25, 2017
ICIPE 2015 : 17th International Conference on Inverse Problems in Engineering. Kyoto, Japan, November 12 - 13, 2015
ICTAM 2015 : 17th International Conference on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. Rome, Italy, September 17 - 18, 2015
ICTAM 2015 : 17th International Conference on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. London, United Kingdom, August 20 - 21, 2015
ICTCM 2015 : 17th International Conference on Theoretical and Computational Mechanics. Dubai, UAE, December 23 - 24, 2015
ICATES 2015 : 17th International Conference on Advances in Tribology and Engineering Systems. London, United Kingdom, September 25 - 26, 2015
This might be something for social media lawyers and legislators to deal with. In the meantime caveat emptor.
For some more on WASET:
88 Recommendations
21st Jan, 2016
Han Han
California Institute of Technology
Beware if you get invitations from Zing Conferences, or from organizations that have conferences hosted by them. I registered for a conference with Zing Conferences a month ago. I haven't been to any of their organized conferences before, as well, the agenda wasn't out even though the conference was going to happen 3 months later. So I was a little doubtful. Good thing that I only had to pay a deposit of $95. However, several days later, they emailed me to say that the conference was cancelled (!) and said that I should email them back for a refund. I emailed them back, no response. Tried again two other times, no response. Also tried their online chat (they are located in the UK), no response. I've finally given up, concluded the worst and called my credit card to dispute the charge. Think twice before associating with them. 
4 Recommendations
27th Jan, 2016
Lazarus Chapungu
Great Zimbabwe University
May you kindly assist, I want to submit my abstract to the conference being organised by Unique Conferences Canada, and the International Center for Research & Development, it is titled " Fifth International Conference on Climate Change Adaptation 2016 (CCA 2016)" and will be held from 09-10 October ,2016 in Toronto, Canada. Is this a genuine conference? Please help because I have no idea how to determine authenticity of conference organisers.
1 Recommendation
27th Jan, 2016
Vinicius Cota
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Hi Lazarus. Regarding international conferences, I would advise you to stick to those promoted and supported by the corresponding scientific association in the international level. I'm not in the field of climate sciences, thus I can't tell which that would be. Yet, if you are going abroad and spending you hardly earned money, you should choose the one with greatest visibility worldwide.
1 Recommendation
28th Jan, 2016
Jeanne Pawitan
University of Indonesia
Dear Lazarus,
You can try googling
1. the organizer: Unique Conferences Canada, and the International Center for Research & Development + bogus+ fake + legitimate etc, and try to open relevant titles to get information.
2. As this is the fifth, you may be can find the previous International Conference on Climate Change Adaptation on the internet, just googling the title of the conference, and look for comments from attendees, if any, and see what they said about the conference
3. Googling the title of the conference + bogus+ fake + legitimate etc and open relevant titles
4. Open the website, and look at the plenary speakers, choose 1-2 who's name is familiar in your filed, look for their e-mail address, and email them whether they will really give a speech in the conference. (Looking for email address: Google the name in google scholar, choose one of their publications, open the article, and from the article you usually can get the email address).
Good luck,
Jeanne A. Pawitan
3 Recommendations
28th Jan, 2016
Lazarus Chapungu
Great Zimbabwe University
Vinicius and Jeane thank you so much for your assistance. I will do as per your advice.
27th Feb, 2016
Enas S Abu libdeh
Al Ain University
thanks for the info 
what about this conference 
is it real or fake ???? 
1 Recommendation
27th Feb, 2016
Biswapriya Biswavas Misra
Enveda Therapeutics India Pvt. Ltd.
Fake by the look of it! And that +91- going to an Indian number is spurious for a organization like this! : (
1 Recommendation
29th Feb, 2016
Jeanne Pawitan
University of Indonesia
Dear Rajesh,
I think that you misunderstood my post. I did not mention OMICS, as I have no experience attending OMICS conference or submitting to OMICS journals. So I can not judge anything about OMICS.
I wrote : " When I got an invitation like Markus, ....." it was meant in general, not OMICS.
I agree with you that Mr. Beall is not 100% right, you can open the website that I posted to read some comments on Mr. Beall, though I am not sure whether the comments are right or wrong.
However, I saw that in his newest release of predatory publishers, some are omitted, maybe they have posted an appeal and proved that they are not predatory, like MDPI was in the list of June 2015, but not in the list of 2016.
My suggestion for you (if you are an employee of OMICS) is to send an appeal to Mr Beall with prove that OMICS is not predatory, I think that if you can convince him, he will remove OMICS from his list. Good luck.
5 Recommendations
7th Oct, 2016
Radhakrishna Shetty
Carlsberg Research Centre
7th Oct, 2016
Martin Gilje Jaatun
SINTEF Digital
I would advise you to find a better conference than http://foodprocessing.global-summit.com/
22nd Nov, 2016
Neelu Joshi
Padmashree Dr.D.Y.Patil Vidyapeeth's
7th world summit on Plant genomics, Bangkok, is genuine?
23rd Nov, 2016
Marijn van Wingerden
Tilburg University
Any on this list of 1000+ conferences organised by the OMICS group are most likely fake:
3rd Jan, 2017
John Frimpong Manso
Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science and Technology
 is 5th International Conference on Management and Education Innovation (ICMEI 2017) genuine?
5th Jan, 2017
Erick Adrian
California State University, Los Angeles
I had attended few conferences of Conference series but those are quite better. I am now going to attend 13th European pathology congress at Milan, Italy. I was an attendee of the previous conference of European pathology congress but that was quite good but not as good as my expectation. I would like to suggest please attend such conferences but there are some organizers who are using a fake name of the conference series, so be careful before commit yourself in such conferences. Visit http://goo.gl/po17fm for the pathology congress.
10th Jan, 2017
Pål K. Selbo
Oslo University Hospital
Markus,
Your message/statement is still valid. We are overfloded by predatory journals and predatory conference invitations. Can someone look into iinnovincconferences.com ? I have got an invitation from http://breastcancer.innovincconferences.com/  "because of your eminence in the field". I am in the field of photomedicine, not breast cancer research.Obviously a spam!
10th Jan, 2017
David Jule Mack
Bosch Sensortec
Hey Pål,
"eminence in the field" is something predatory conferences/journals really like. I have been identified as an "eminence" in renal cell carcinoma & bell's palsy although that is not even closely related to my expertise.
Innovinc is listed on Beall's list, so should be taken with A LOT of care:
Greetings, David
18th Jan, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
The Beall site is empty. https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
Due to the lawsuit?
This is not good.
2 Recommendations
18th Jan, 2017
David Jule Mack
Bosch Sensortec
That's bad!
18th Jan, 2017
David Jule Mack
Bosch Sensortec
Do you have any more info? Since it really seems odd to leave the site up but take down all the content...
Seems like the content has been removed around the 12th of January, the latest date for which there is still an entry in the web archive.
1 Recommendation
18th Jan, 2017
Björn Thrandur Björnsson
University of Gothenburg
Hi David and Randolph,
For a completely unrelated matter, I looked Beall's list up this morning only to discover that it was an empty website. Gives me the creeps. Something really bad is going on. Thank you David for supplying the link to the web archive. http://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ 
18th Jan, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
Beall declined to comment. But a CU Denver spokesperson told ScienceInsider that Beall made a “personal decision” to take down his list of low-quality journals that charge authors a fee to publish, often with little or no review or editing. The spokesperson says the blog was not hacked, nor was it taken down as a result of legal threats, and Beall will remain on the school’s faculty. The spokesperson could not confirm whether the blog's removal is permanent.
3 Recommendations
18th Jan, 2017
Olakunle J Onaolapo
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
I used to think such 'invitations' are targeted mainly at researchers from my part of the world; now I know it is a global issue.
2 Recommendations
18th Jan, 2017
Peter Schaefer
Advanced Orthomolecular Research
Watch out for " 3 party scame "
20th Jan, 2017
Norman Hj Kamarudin
Blimey. I came across WASET while looking for some Entomological Conference in 2017 (i missed ICE 2016 in Orlando). Well i had a hunch it is a fake site. Well thanks to everybody here for confirming this unhealthy scam.
31st Jan, 2017
Gandhi Gracy
National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources
Hello Researchers,
Is "Magnus  Science Group" Predatory. Kindly let me know
1 Recommendation
6th Feb, 2017
Barbara Piasecka
Ontario Tech University
Hello,
This is the most recent e-mail invitation I received regarding being invited as a speaker: http://geriatrics-gerontology.conferenceseries.com/scientific-program
Can something happen if you submit your abstract and information (e.g. address, telephone number)? -- before checking other sources, I may have been tricked. Luckily, no payments were made.
7th Feb, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
Do not make any payments no matter what and as for your contact information, expect to get spam.
They still have listed speakers and sponsors that are neither, and I know this because I contacted about a dozen of them and they all said that their name/brand were being used without permission. I would not trust OMICs/ConferenceSeriesLLC on anything ever, period. 
1 Recommendation
8th Feb, 2017
Sergio Manuel Serra da Cruz
Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
Is Magnus conference a bogus conference organizer?
11th Feb, 2017
David Jule Mack
Bosch Sensortec
Dear all, 
just found 2 additional resources which might supplement Beall's list:
- ScientificSpam: A blog and a DNSBL which you can use to filter science SPAM.
- Flaky Scientific Journals: A blog & list of bad publishers (with a smaller focus than Baell's list)
Hope that helps!
Greetings, David
16th Feb, 2017
Hans van Leunen
Eindhoven University of Technology
My system warns me not to open this site.
17th Feb, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
Conferenceseries LLC (aka Omics International) are now spamming Mendeley. I have already reported them, but you should too if they contact you via Mendeley, RG or similar.
10th Mar, 2017
Ma. Manna Farrel Balboa Pinto
University of the Philippines
Hi all. I plan to attend a conference this july, hosted by Sapienza university of rome, and cbees. Is this legit? (icget 2017)
10th Mar, 2017
Vanessa K Morris
University of Canterbury
Regarding the post by Annette Cannon, sometimes it's amusing to check out the address given by the conference organiser on Google maps street view. The address for the Program Manager for your nursing meeting is a quiet suburban street. The program manager gave their home address? Or more likely, it's a completely bogus address. No phone number given of course, another red flag.
1 Recommendation
11th Mar, 2017
Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva
Independent
On predatory congresses, symposia and meetings, these guidelines may be useful:
Teixeira da Silva, J.A., Sorooshian, S., Al-Khatib, A. (2017) Cost-benefit assessment of congresses, meetings or symposia, and selection criteria to determine if they are predatory. Walailak Journal of Science and Technology 14(4): 259-265.
1 Recommendation
1st Apr, 2017
Daniela Assimiti
California Prep International School
Happy  to  come  across  this  discussion .  Thanks all  for  the  interesting  and  very  useful   details !
6th Apr, 2017
Helen Kopnina
Northumbria University
too bad the Beall's list of conferences and publishers had to close
6th Apr, 2017
Dr Fariha Qureshi
Akhtar Saeed Medical And Dental College
Very useful information indeed. Can anyone comment on the authenticity of below mentioned conference:
6th European Conference on Predictive , Preventive and Personalized Medicine & Molecular Diagnostics September 14-15, 2017 Edinburgh, Scotland.
6th Apr, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
The clue is in "conferenceseries".
7th Apr, 2017
Julio César López- Valdés
Autonomous University of Tamaulipas
Thank you so much for the info. and for the warning ... Today I received this email 
"The Human Rights International Organization, invites you to participate in the 2017 educational symposium on Child sexual abuse, such as' Child Marriage, Human Trafficking, A Solution to Global Terrorism and Anti-Slavery. the educational symposium will be taking place from June 26th to 30th 2017 at the conference place in Texas, USA."; it came from a bigpond e-address ... I think is another "predatory congress / seminar"
1 Recommendation
14th Apr, 2017
Ausama A. Yousif
Faculty Veterinary Medicine, Cairo University
Greetings all,
Thank you for the input. Any idea about Virology 2017. It supposed to be held in Toronto at the end of October.
Respectfully
1 Recommendation
24th May, 2017
Fernando Capilitan Jr
University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines
My paper was accepted for a paper presentation under this conference:
International Conference on Psychology, Language and Teaching (ICPLT)
Tokyo, Japan, 6th-7th August, 2017
This conference was managed by International Institute of Engineers and RESEARCHERS (IIER) with website address 
IS THIS A LEGITIMATE?
30th May, 2017
Phaedra Cress
The Aesthetic Society (formerly ASAPS)
Hi all,
I just published an article in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal  about these predatory conferences which may be helpful. I've attached a screenshot of the first page here. Feel free to write to me for the full PDF: phaedra@surgery.org. The prevalence of these predatory publishers, journals, and conferences is increasing and so many doctors, scientists, and researchers fall prey. With Beall's list being pulled down I hope it will only be a matter of time until someone picks up the baton. 
In the meantime, an archive version of Beall's work may be found here: https://goo.gl/Z3y9S7.
This is a topic of interest for me and I appreciate everyone sharing their experiences and views. The more we help educate, the faster we can force and end to these criminal enterprises!
Phaedra Cress
Executive Editor, Aesthetic Surgery Journal
2 Recommendations
14th Jun, 2017
Ingrid M Outschoorn
we get a lot of invitations too-especially from China
21st Jun, 2017
Lygia Therese Budnik,
University Medical Center Hamburg - Eppendorf
I got a lot of invitations too (invitations as speaker, session chair etc). They are mostly organized in China, mostly outside of your field, mostly without a name of the organizing society and no information on sponsorships. Just today an invitation as invited speaker invitation to EMN meeting in Florida. What is EMN? I am working in the area of environmental medicine, so it is presumably not my area, if it exists at all.
21st Jun, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
International Institute of Engineers and RESEARCHERS (IIER) website looks like the typical scam used by predators. I highly doubt Google Scholar is a sponsor and none of their claimed sponsors is hyper-linked. That is a sure sign that they are fraudulently claiming the sponsors.
This is the second sign that they are fakes and scammers: they advertise for Board Members and will give you - Being an Advisory/Editorial Member you will get special discount of 20% at any Conference or Journal Registration from the second year onwards of your association. 
File this one under scamming predators is my opinion.
1 Recommendation
5th Jul, 2017
Toni Strieker
Kennesaw State University
There are several of us who were invited to speak at the World Education Day in Dalian, China in late September. It was difficult to pay registration as it was bundled with the hotel rooms. Once we got registered, we began to contact the conference chair, who has not responded to our email for nearly a week. We are beginning to be a bit suspicious. Can anyone tell us if this is a legitimate conference? If this is a hoax, we need to get our money back!
6th Jul, 2017
Jeanne Pawitan
University of Indonesia
My suggestion: ask  Dr. Shuji Nakamura, who will be the keynote speaker
"Dr. Shuji Nakamura obtained B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tokushima in Japan. He joined Nichia Chemical Industries Ltd. in 1979. In 1989, he started blue LEDs using group-III nitride materials. Nakamura developed the first III nitride-based blue/green LEDs III nitride-based violet laser diodes.
Dr. Nakamura the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999. He is currently the Research Director of the Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center and The Cree Professor in Solid State Lighting and Display. His research includes MOCVD, bulk crystal growth and device fabrication of gallium nitride (GaN). He received the 2006 Millennium Technology Prize for his invention of revolutionary new energy-saving light sources and the 2014 Nobel Laureate in Physics for the invention of efficient blue, which have enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. Dr. Nakamura is also the co-founder of Soraa Inc. "
Google for his e-mail, and ask his opinion.
or, you can ask the opinion of the many renowned speakers listed, just google to get their e-mails.
Moreover, invited speakers are usually get registration fee waived, get travel cost, and get the hotel paid. And sometimes a fee for your speech. You got invited, am I right?? I  would ask for that, if I was invited. However, if they do not provide all of  that, and I am interested to join, I will ask the listed speakers of their opinion.
12th Jul, 2017
Luyanda Ndlela
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa
Please help, is Conference series a predatory group of conference organizers or are these legitimate?
12th Jul, 2017
Randolph B Caldwell
Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH)
Conferenceseries LLC (aka Omics International) are highly suspicious and have listed people as speakers that are not speakers and supporters that are not supporters. I know this because I have contacted people and sponsors listed by them that knew nothing of it.
Avoid them is the recommendation.
2 Recommendations
12th Jul, 2017
Toni Strieker
Kennesaw State University
There were two of us who originally planned to attend, but an investigation by our university, we cancelled. There was too much smoke, not to be a fire.
14th Jul, 2017
Mervat Elanany
Cairo University
Yes i also recommend not to share in conferenceseries and Waset
1 Recommendation
16th Jul, 2017
Chidi Gift Nwokocha
Rivers State University
I am invited to the world ophthalmology conference 2018 Dubai to be a member of the organizing committee but this looks suspicious...the WOC i know is world ophthalmology congress not conference...can some one investigate this for me..
11th Aug, 2017
Can Imirzalioglu
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Dear Sasmita Acharya,
this is highly likley to be a predatory conference. Check: 
Bit Congress Inc is mentioned there.
11th Aug, 2017
Can Imirzalioglu
Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Dear Sasmita Acharya,
this is highly likley to be a predatory conference. Check: 
Bit Congress Inc is mentioned there.
1 Recommendation
18th Aug, 2017
Refilwe Moeletsi
Mintek
 Does anyone know if this one is real or a spam?
30th Aug, 2017
Harinder Pal
Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya
 Can anyone help me to comment about the following conference in Paris
2nd Sep, 2017
Morlu G. F. Stevens
Botswana International University of Science and Technology
Is this '2nd International Conference on Pollution Control and Sustainable Environment
October 5-6, 2017 London, UK'  a spam or a predatory conference ?
5th Sep, 2017
Christina Supramaniam
University of Greenwich
As an early career researcher, I will recommend against soliciting with conference.series.com and its related partners. I was invited as a speaker for an unrelated conference and when I said I had no budget, they gave me free accommodation and reduced fees. I became suspicious and searched online before arriving at Beall's List. This list saved me from unnecessary link with predator journals/conferences. However, I recently found myself in an organizing committee of conferences that I was never informed of. I dislike this and wish someone could take action against such unethical use of my profile from the internet/RG.
4 Recommendations
8th Sep, 2017
Willem H Koppenol
(retired)
I received today an invitation to speak at one of these dubious conferences (Euro Chemistry Conference 2018,  Scient Global Conferences).  Many have asked how you can find out whether such an invitation is from a predatory organisation. If, as in this case, it is a chemistry conference, it is easy: simply consult the list of events from The Royal Society of Chemistry (http://www.rsc.org/events/international).  Imagine my surprise, that conference was not listed!!
3 Recommendations
8th Sep, 2017
Jose Manuel Martí
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
After the withdrawal of the original list of predatory publishers known as Beall's list (see ref. about in Nature) in response to "threats and politics," it seems that an updated copy is available in: http://beallslist.weebly.com/ .
4 Recommendations
12th Sep, 2017
Wendel Mombaque Dos Santos
Abbott
This month I received two invitations to "21st World Congress on Nursing Pharmacology and Nursing Education" and "Technological Innovations in Surgical Nursing 2017 Conference". These are in the conferenceseries.com this site always send invitations to this kind of conference, and usually try to make us pay for something in the conference.
These is just one another way for the predatory science that we have now a days. 
1 Recommendation
15th Sep, 2017
Olusola T Bolaji
Lagos State University of Science and Technology
Majority are out there to make money. They will Appeal to anything within a scientist  to motivate them to release their resources (Money).in the name of conference.
I think they know the importance of a conference to scientist and that's exactly what they intend to explore.
If the  predatory journals are on the increase, simply for money, Why won't the Predatory conference organizer also be on the increase!
25th Sep, 2017
Andrés Rodríguez-Seijo
University of Vigo
Dear Willem H Koppenol
I also received this email but I'm not agree with your comment. RSC doesn't collect all conferences about chemistry that exist in the world. I think that only collects the conferences that are related to RSC or submitted by Organizer committee to RSC.
For example, in November will be go a conference on Porto (Portugal), co-organized by Elsevier and doesn't appear on RSC list http://emec18.eventos.chemistry.pt http://www.rsc.org/events/calendar/2017/11
1st Oct, 2017
Jean-Pierre Petit
Aix-Marseille Université
I have received an invitation to give a plenary lecture at a conference held in San Antonio, about astrophysics ans particle physics, 2017 nov 13-15 :
The cost for registration was $1000. 
I saw that a french colleague, Jean Michel Alimi, director of the french laboratory LUTH, (laboratory Universe Theory)  in Meudon, was mentioned as a featured speaker. I wrote to him. He immediately replied he did not intend to present anything there. Later his name was removed from the list 
I asked the organizers to have the proceedings of the last meeting, held in Dallas, dec 2016.
No answer. 
I saw that Steven Weinberg was mentioned as a member of the organization comity. 
I wrote to the Indian girl, Preity Sae, who is the contact for this meeting, saying "some sponsors would accept to support this mission. But they would like to have the confirmation that Weinberg is in this comity." 
No answer. 
It's clear. This conference isa call for suckers. 
2 Recommendations
1st Oct, 2017
Vered Raz
Leiden University Medical Centre
I checked Beall's list, but pcscongress.org (Pioneer Century Science) is not listed. I believe this organization can also join the list. I'm reading part of the long list of messages here relate to this subject. Can we help Beall's list, with the hope that this way we will combat this anti-science industry? 
1 Recommendation
3rd Oct, 2017
Anna Odrowaz-Coates
Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, Poland
Hi, do you know anything about these series of conferences:
International Conference on Psychology & Language Research
I am tempted by the 6th ICPLR 2018 - International Conference on Psychology & Language Research (Portugal), 24 May – 25 May, 2018-
It can be found on many lists and I thought of applying but they seem to hold too many a year and the organizers seem to be in India, the fee is significant 300 dolars plus 15 dolars admin fee and I am a bit worried whether it is genuine or not. Please help. I feel a bit naive here.
Anna
P.S.
The organizers are : Global Psychology and Language Research Association (GPLRA)
Dr. Lazarus
3rd Oct, 2017
Martina Lorey
Wihuri Research Institute
Anna, I am not sure but they have an error on the main home tab (odd for language research) and the publisher which publishes the articles, GRDS PUBLISHING, is on the Bealls list: https://clinicallibrarian.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers/
I would try to find something else ;)
3 Recommendations
4th Oct, 2017
Jack Fernandes
Aga Khan University, Pakistan
What about CONAL.  People are now receiving invitation from alerts@conferencealerts.com to present.  The name suggest that you should receive alerts and not invitation.
18th Oct, 2017
Jerry Decker
Retired Engineer
Some take place and others don’t. There isn’t time to respond to all of them, and some are not credible.
24th Oct, 2017
Julio César López- Valdés
Autonomous University of Tamaulipas
Hi everyone!. If someone could answer me What means a RVSP invitation? i.e. what difference is between a normal invitation and a RVSP invitation?? Is just a polite way to ask for an answer???
24th Oct, 2017
Hina Jaffery
University of Lahore
Interesting thread of answers. Can someone please suggest a list of authentic conferences in the field of business and management?? Preferably the ones you have attended and know for sure are reliable....thank you
1 Recommendation
26th Oct, 2017
Stefano Falone
University of L'Aquila
I receive such invitations on a daily basis, but, for the first time, this year I convinced the organizing committee to waive off my registration fee. However, in a 'do ut des' game, they asked me to "suggest ... colleagues and friends for the conference as speakers or for poster presentation and ... to promote our conference in your university...".
For those who are wondering the name of the conference...
I also tried to get in touch with Prof. Harald zur Hausen, Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine 2008, who is allegedly the main podium presenter, to have confirmation of his participation to the conference. Unfortunately, I got not reply from him.
Still thinking about calling it off.
Stefano Falone
29th Oct, 2017
Farhat Ullah
Kohat University of Science and Technology
Dear All
Its a routine practice now in academia and we regularly receiving such mails.
14th Nov, 2017
Jonathan H Clarke
University of Cambridge
Having recently fallen foul of a predatory conference organising company I am compelled to add to this blog and advise any researcher to avoid conferenceseries.com (also contactable (?) under 'dementia@neuroconferences.org'; 'dementia@conferenceseries.net' or 'dementia@neuroconferences.com'). This is not a bogus front - the conference was organised (in fact two were running simultaneously in the same venue), however only 4 of the 26 organised speakers turned up, none of the poster presenters and a handful of delegates. None of the scientific organising committee or session chairs were present, and when they were contacted they either were unaware that they were involved in the conference, or had been approached a year ago and had then heard nothing more from the organisers. Of course the company will not reply to any correspondence. According to their website they run dozens of conferences a year, probably all as badly organised. They seem to be owned by the OMICS consortium and judging by other contributors should be avoided at all costs.

Similar questions and discussions

What is InTech Open Science? A predatory or a ligitimate publisher?
Question
530 answers
  • Stephen Jia WangStephen Jia Wang
Dear friends colleagues, have you ever received an invitation to publish your work at InTech Open Science (https://www.intechopen.com/)? I have recently been invited to edit a new book title for them. I am usually suspicious with such invitations and must check the authenticity of the publisher first. Interestingly, they claim that they have published the work for two recent Nobel Laureates. Therefore, I would appreciate your experience and opinions regarding InTech Open Science.
Kind regards,

Related Publications

Article
Discusses the Third International Conference on Adult Education which was held in Tokyo in 1972 that considered the main trends in adult education during the last decade and reviewed policies for educational development in respect of adult education. (Author/RK)
Got a technical question?
Get high-quality answers from experts.