EASE Statement of endorsement for the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication
EASE supports this initiative promoting multilingualism in research, as it reinforces our commitment to quality scientific and scholarly communication.
As the initiative states, research is international, and information needs to be understood by everyone who can benefit from it. Although the global language of science is English, this restricts understanding and there is the potential for incorrect translation to mislead (at best) and lead to harm (at worst).
We therefore fully commit to the need to reward researchers for ensuring their works are accessible and understandable to both the researcher and the wider community. We also endorse the need for support of local non-profit publishers and we especially call for the support of editors to ensure the quality of published research, and the suitability of dissemination.
We are committed to language diversity, especially in the humanities and social sciences where translations may be less appropriate to properly discuss and describe cultural issues.
We call on all EASE members to commit to supporting local publishing, local editing and respect for local languages; and to advocate for recognition of the importance of local publishing of scholarly research.
Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV), the Committee for Public Information (TJNK), the Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing, Universities Norway (UHR) and the COST Action “European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities” (ENRESSH).
Full details of the initiative can be found on their website: https://www.helsinki-initiative.org/en
Statement created: 8 January 2020