A tale of two Great Lakes conferences: Urging global collaboration on our largest freshwater resources

Scientific meetings and conferences are a part of the scientific process, and can facilitate collaboration, idea-sharing, and harmonization of research and management. The success of a conference can be measured using many criteria, including consistency and reoccurrence of the meetings, credibility by participation of reputable professionals, and attendance by a diverse community. In the interest of increasing the success of large-lake, freshwater science, policy, and management, this comment focuses on two recent conferences attended by the authors: the 60th annual meeting of the International Association for Great Lakes Research, in Detroit, U.S.A., and the African Great Lakes Conference, in Entebbe, Uganda. By our measures of success, we suggest that to make a larger impact on research, policy, and management of global, large, freshwater lakes that each conference can improve, either through greater diversity of experts from the global freshwater research community, or by consistently reoccurring on a regular basis.