I would like to start a conversation about implementing a consistent refund policy for conference registration fees in the event of a visa-related cancellation, across the conferences currently supported by IAQI (QIP, TQC, QCrypt). Visa-related issues are unfortunately a reality for many members in our community, and affected members who paid the conference fee out of pocket shouldn’t have to deal with the financial burden associated with this problem. I understand that this could in turn create a financial burden with the local organizers, and I would like to look into ways to provide financial support (through IAQI) for LOs to mitigate the risk of no-show’s, and remove this burden from participants as much as possible.
Hi, this is definitely an issue for many students. It happened during QIP’22 and we reimbursed a number of registrations (there there was also COVID, so it made sense to have a generous cancellation policy).
My opinion is that this is something that should be on the local organizers to accommodate to some extent, and on the student & their university to plan for, not on us. The same situation must happen for many students at the university and many conferences in all areas, and they should have a way to deal with it–it is them sending their employees on business travel.
On our end, I feel it would be entirely impractical to have a reasonable procedure in place for arbitrating such cases. And if we can’t arbitrate, it means we have to offer a blanket policy that would quickly puncture our budget (this is like 500$/student) for relatively little benefit to the community. (I understand this is major for the student, but we don’t necessarily want to give such comparatively large amount to any individual, for whatever reason.)
Honestly I think that it doesn’t cost that much to the LO to allow cancellations; for them it is a question of adjusting the coffee break amounts the week before the conference in case they have a few dropouts, and that is it. Most other costs are not on a per-person basis.
Hi Thomas, I agree that we most likely don’t have the funds to provide a financial guarantee to local organizers. That wasn’t really my main point and just a brainstorming idea.
I do want to point out that it is entirely possible that a university refuses to cover the costs for a trip that didn’t actually happen. Universities often ask to pay out of pocket first and reimburse later, in which case the financial burden can be almost entirely with the student/researcher, and this can be a rather risky situation for a student.
My main wish is to have a conversation with local organizing and steering committees to implement a more flexible cancellation policy that accommodates visa-related no-shows.
I also agree with your last point that this shouldn’t actually be too hard to implement for LOs.
Universities usually also have travel insurance, for students and staff on business trips. The travel insurance should cover this. Sometimes people are not even aware that there is travel insurance (and by people, I mean my past self) until they need it.
From an LO perspective, it really depends. For QIP2027 we will likely book a package with a conference venue, which would cost in the order of $800 per person and the numbers have to be locked in at some point. So it depends very much on the specifics of the deal that the LO can make if last-minute cancellations can be covered by organisers. They shouldn’t have to - they have enough to worry about!
In my view this is an insurance issue and if universities don’t pay for insurance they should not send anybody abroad anyway! What happens if a student gets seriously sick during the trip and needs to fly back right away? There must be some insurance. The question is whether it covers visa-related cancellation costs - if yours does not then that is something to bring up with the university.
Thanks, I understand your point better now. I would agree with Marco that this is more of a university-level issue; but I’m happy to consider it as a point of discussion within IAQI. I certainly see the harm to the student.
My other concern in this context is whether, if this is an issue between SC and LO, IAQI has something to say about it. In general I don’t want us to be seen as imposing requirements on the conferences, especially at such an early stage in our existence. I see us as providing a service, not obligations. The point you raise is one that can be considered among many; such as the LOs providing travel support for students (or underrepresented minorities, etc), the LOs having a local code of conduct, etc. I think that these are all important points but they should be taken between the SC and the LO. If we feel that the SC is not doing its “job” in this respect…well, I would agree that it is not our job to tell them how to do theirs I really don’t want to overstep and be seen as putting constraints on the SCs, in many ways the people there have been around longer, and know better, than us.
Not to say that we shouldn’t do anything. I’m happy to keep the discussion open and if concrete points of consensus emerge, we should act on them. It can certainly be an agenda item at a next EB meeting. And we could start building up some kind of document of “best practices” from our point of view, that we could later on share with SCs or LOs (again I’m personally really hesitant to go there but I’ll follow your or others’ lead there).
Thanks for your thoughts on this, Thomas! I agree that we shouldn’t impose on SCs by requiring certain cancellation policies, but it seems to be a topic worth bringing up in discussions. I guess we’re already doing this with next year’s QIP LO
I do like the idea of a “best practices” document that could be circulated among SCs and LOs. We should make sure to discuss this in one of the next EB meetings.
One thing I could imagine IAQI being useful in this context is to keep some know-how in how to organize a conference, and this could include a point regarding registration cancellations. I’m sure others are more experienced in this as I haven’t organized any major conference directly; but I am sure there are a million things to think about when organizing a conference, especially a large-scale one. I imagine a new organizing team can easily overlook or forget some points. Providing a sort of check-list item points as a helpful guide to conference organizers, assembled by what I’m sure already exists for QIP/TQC/…, could be useful to future organizers also of other conferences. Among the points in this list could be a reminder to think in advance about what cancellation policy the organizers can offer, especially in visa-related cases.
Sounds like a tricky situation! As a current LO, we are very stressed out about balancing budgets, and refunds are yet another dimension that adds uncertainty. We were planning on allowing some form of reimbursement by the registration deadline. But at some point (ideally at the registration deadline!), we need the final figures, and the sooner the better because there are multiple vendors to confirm final numbers. The final figures determine the cost to a certain extend, although indeed, many of the costs will be fixed by that point. Also, on the immigration side, we’ve been warned by the federal authorities to expect visa fraud. I wouldn’t want to inadvertently encourage the fraud, especially at the expense of IAQI. Just some things to consider.
Also, just FYI, I noticed that right after the pandemic, my university changed their travel policy, to now include “unexpected expenses” as eligible travel expenses. I personally would not hesitate to advocate for the student, given the unexpected expense related to the visa issue, however I fortunately haven’t had to deal with this yet.
I really don’t want to overstep and be seen as putting constraints on the SCs, in many ways the people there have been around longer, and know better, than us.