StudiesMedia Preferences of Applied Researchers The Science Advisory Board recently asked applied researchers in three fields -- agricultural biotechnology, biodefense, and molecular diagnostics -- to share their preferences for how they learn about life science products and suppliers. Common Ways Scientists Learn About Products and Services Of all the different ways a scientist can learn about a vendor’s products and services, catalogs are the most common channel. However, depending upon the discipline, other means may be as popular, as is the case for molecular diagnostics and biodefense. Scientists who work in molecular diagnostics rely on scientific meetings and colleague recommendations to the same extent as catalogs to provide product information. Furthermore, biodefense researchers depend upon colleague recommendations almost as frequently as they do catalogs to inform them about life science products. Only for agricultural biotechnologists are catalogs the single most frequently used product information source. Interestingly, while Web sites are the 4th most common source of product information for molecular diagnostics and agricultural biotechnology, they rank 6th for Biodefense.  Scientific Meetings & Conferences On average, agricultural biotechnology researchers plan to attend 2.2 meetings, biodefense researchers plan to attend 2.6 meetings, and molecular diagnostic researchers plan on attending 2.4 meetings in 2008. Agricultural biotechnology and biodefense researchers spend roughly 13% of their time and molecular diagnostic researchers spend approximately 17% of their time at conferences visiting exhibit booths. Not surprisingly, a scientist’s discipline generally drives selection of which meetings researchers plan to attend in 2008. The American Society for Microbiology is the single meeting that researchers from all three applied markets largely plan to attend. In fact, this meeting ranks as one of the top three meetings for each of the three areas of research. Most Popular Scientific Meetings Agricultural Biotechnology
Biodefense
Molecular Diagnostics
We also asked The Science Advisory Board members who participated in this study: "What advice would you give vendors hoping to provide researchers like yourself with the most relevant product information in a timely and convenient format?" To read their responses, click here. [ View Current & Future Studies ] [ View Past Studies ] |
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