[Balgair]

It depends on the field, but yes. Many optics researchers really only do presentations and they 'count' as paper publications. The pressure is still intense though.

[CannoloBlahnik]

Some areas focus on conference publications rather than journal publications—in optics is there no conference publication, just the presentation?

[Balgair]

Oh man, yes, you are correct. My brain was somewhere else. My bad.