A Good Practice Guide for Organizing the Scientific Program of International Conferences

This paper provides a step-by-step guide for organizing the scientific program (OSP) of international conferences. Through informal discussions, a panel of experts organizing international conferences came up with this guide, which includes a flowchart, checklist, and detailed discussions of each step. Subsequently, additional specialists were invited to evaluate this synopsis and provide their input. All of the participants approved the final version after the outline was improved. This guide proposes the following six steps: 1) preparation, 2) recruitment, 3) building the agenda, 4) cross-checking the program, 5) reviewing and finalizing, and 6) in-conference refining. Thirteen items are specified across the six main steps in a detailed checklist. This OSP guide includes a flowchart and a checklist for providing a comprehensive manual for establishing, conducting, and organizing international scientific conferences. Understanding the procedures that are expected to be followed when holding a scientific conference enables the involved parties to organize and assign tasks to one another as well as create a schedule that allows them to finish their work on time. This guide can be used at any kind of scientific conference to describe an organized process, resulting in a professional and distinguished scientific program.