All of the editors at Nature Reviews Psychology have left behind our research labs and no longer have new theories to present in a talk or preliminary results to discuss in a poster session. However, we still attend conferences. Doing so helps us to stay up to date with the field in ways that are difficult to accomplish by simply reading the literature.

Just like researchers, we spent a lot of time at conferences in talk sessions. Because we publish reviews and not original primary research, our focus in a research talk is not only on the latest greatest results, but also on how the presenter is framing concepts and what ideas generate lots of questions and discussion. We also keep an eye out for contentious issues and the status of debates in the field. We take this context into account when we decide what topics to cover and who we should invite to write on them. We attend keynote presentations too, which are a great way for us to get a broad sense of how highly respected thinkers conceptualize the field. By paying attention to who is invited to give a keynote or symposium and what topic or angle they focus on, we also learn about the priorities and aims of the scientific society that organized the conference.

We also attend panel discussions on meta-science and academia issues. Doing so gives us the opportunity to hear from researchers who are invested in, for example, lowering barriers to research with under-represented groups or efforts to make the field more inclusive for researchers and trainees. We are committed to championing these and other topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and an inspiring talk might prompt us to invite a Comment that proposes a solution or a Review or Perspective that dives deeper into the research literature supporting a particular issue.

At conferences we also have one-on-one meetings with researchers. We post on Twitter when we’re heading to a conference, so feel free to reach out to us by direct message or by email (nrpsych@nature.com reaches all of the editors) to set up a time to chat. If you see one of us at a conference, come and say hi! We might ask what new developments in the field you’re most excited about and what approaches you think are on their way out. These conversations with researchers across all career stages can reveal what ideas are capturing attention outside the establishment and might not be captured in conference programmes. We also learn about new ideas and methods that aren’t ready for a primetime talk but will change the shape of the field in the next few years, helping us to commission content that will be timely and capture emerging trends.

Beyond talking about research, we also love to talk about editing itself. We are happy to serve on career panels and speak informally about editorial career paths. The academic job market is notoriously competitive, and a faculty job might not be the right fit for everyone. A career in editing is a great alternative for people who want to stay connected to research without an academic appointment. We can also help to demystify the hidden curriculum of publishing by talking about the aims and logistics of the publication process as part of publishing or ‘meet the editor’ panels. Each editor had a different path to their current role and has a unique take on what makes our journal special. Sharing these perspectives is a very rewarding part of our outreach.

There are hundreds of psychology conferences every year and if we attended all of them we wouldn’t have time to edit the journal. We try to be strategic about what we attend, covering our core areas of clinical, cognitive, and social psychology through a mix of larger and smaller conferences. Big conferences that span all of psychology can be helpful for seeing trends that extend broadly across the discipline, but often have packed schedules that make it harder to forge individual connections. Smaller, field-specific conferences give us a much more focused view of one area, but necessarily limit the topics we can learn about and how many people we can reach. We know there are excellent conferences happening every year that we haven’t heard of yet, so please let us know what you think we might be missing!

The journal launched in January 2022, just as the world was emerging from the pandemic, and our conference travel has thus far been largely restricted to the USA and Europe (where our editorial team is based). However, conferences give us an opportunity to meet with researchers who work in time zones that make video calls and other virtual interactions tricky, so we are looking forward to expanding our travels in 2023 and beyond. In the coming months, look out for us at the World Congress of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies (Seoul, South Korea), Cognitive Science Society (Sydney, Australia), Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (Nagoya, Japan), the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (Guelph, Canada) and the Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society (Bremen, Germany). We’d love to see you there!