The 29th of March will be significant for Birmingham City University’s Centre for Brexit Studies – and not just for the obvious reason. The day the UK is due to leave the EU is also the opening of its second annual conference.

It will be the third conference Alex de Ruyter, the centre’s director, has attended in the past year and he is well aware of worries about what will happen to such events in future. “There is a concern about participation of European academics,” he says. “What will happen with freedom of movement – and European research funding?”

He is not the only one worried. Heather Lishman, of the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers, says uncertainty is already putting UK conference organisers at a disadvantage. “People are a bit reticent to book for this year or next,” she says. “At the moment they are going to see what is happening.” The problem is that bidding to host conferences begins well in advance, so the effects will only be felt in two or three years’ time, she says.

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Conferences are becoming increasingly significant, not only to the economy as a whole, but to universities in particular. Of the more than £18bn generated for the UK economy last year by the meeting and events industry, nearly £2bn came from conferences held (mainly by non-academic businesses and associations) in academic venues.

Research by Nicholas Rowe, an educationalist at the University of Lapland, in Finland, suggests average spending on a two-and-a-half day conference, in terms of travel, conference fee and accommodation, is around £1,763 for each academic delegate.

The international academic conference industry has already reported problems securing visas for delegates because of the UK’s “hostile environment” immigration policies, and one concern is that European academics, too, could find themselves caught up in bureaucracy after Brexit.

But according to Sandro Carnicelli, senior lecturer in events and tourism management at the University of the West of Scotland, UK academics may also find going to conferences more difficult. “Most academics are funded by research projects and a lot of those projects are European,” he says.

“Some partners in Europe are cautious about including British academics in proposals for funding, because they believe there may be issues in getting funding approved.”

This could have knock-on effects on the academic conference industry, Lishman says. Associations aim to hold conferences in locations where the most exciting research is happening. “That’s the challenge if the research dries up.”

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Bidding to host a conference is highly competitive. Conference venues, large hotels, the university conference centre and the relevant academics will all be involved in putting a bid together.

Emily Henderson, assistant professor in the Centre for Education Studies at the University of Warwick, who has researched academic conferences, says: “The UK has changed status to potentially a riskier place to go. Academics and higher education institutions are quite risk-averse, so as soon as there’s something – even if it’s quite a metaphorical obstacle – it feeds into decisions.”

Even if Brexit never happens, venues could see a gap in their income in future years, she says. An academic study last year into the effect of cancelling the large 2012 annual meeting of the American political science association, following a hurricane, found a significant reduction in collaborations between political scientists from different institutions that year.

However, Richard Smith, who puts together the annual UK conference and meeting survey, believes Brexit will not be all bad news. A low exchange rate could make the UK more attractive to foreign delegates, he says, and being outside the EU could even make the UK seem a more exotic destination.

Rowe says his research suggests that the benefits of academic conferences could be overrated anyway. Much of the information presented at conferences is never disseminated more widely, and delegates rarely get to hear every presentation relevant to their research. He estimates the amount spent on “lost” unpublished research from UK conferences at around £228m. There is also a significant environmental cost from conference travel.

Concerns have long been growing both about the sustainability and the inclusivity of conferences, Brexit or no Brexit. This has led to more virtual, local and one-day events. If the trend continues, Henderson suggests, being in or out of Europe could eventually become less of an issue – so long as there is wifi.