Why do scientists burn jet fuel when they could email, skype or telephone?

This presentation is lifted from a new project on the role of face-to-face (F2F) communication in the age of the internet and other remote means (R2R). If one asks why scientists go to conferences and other meetings the answer is (at least) fivefold: to generate trust; transfer tacit knowledge; to communicate efficiently; to take advantage of serendipitous meetings; and to indicate commitment and provide energy for constructing new realities. Right across the professional world there is pressure to replace F2F with R2R on cost and environmental grounds, so we had better understand F2F. The implications are huge, for instance, F2F makes science work in contrast to the way populism and social media work while video talks won’t replace universities, nor skype the lab visit.