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I am unable get a clear idea about the difference between a conference and a symposium. The folllowing are the meanings of symposium and conference from As we can see below there is no significant difference between these two. I am not getting clarity in the difference from either the below definitions or Google search. I have attended both conferences and symposiums in my field, but unable to find any difference. Could someone provide me a clear-cut difference between these two (atleast theoretically)?



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3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Using the OALD for definitions, a symposium is:

a meeting at which experts have discussions about a particular subject; a small conference

A conference is:

  2. a meeting at which people have formal discussions



He was in conference with his lawyers all day.

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Thanks for the OALD link. – kkp Sep 1 '11 at 23:35
@kkp: OALD usually includes many examples of usage for different words, so I find it helpful even as a native speaker. – simchona Sep 1 '11 at 23:36



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A symposium is a bit like an academic conference involving scholars and researchers to present their findings.

A symposium can also be quite large in scale — one that I attended took a week and required hiring a multi-storied convention centre with many rooms because there are many sessions.

IMO — In a symposium there is a more narrowly defined topic for each session, and speakers make presentations of their work uninterrupted with questions asked later. A conference in its general sense could be people sharing their opinions alternately at the same time.

You will find that often symposium is preferable to the word conference in many scientific and engineering, i.e. technical settings.

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protected by Jason Bourne Jan 15 at 13:37

