Does excellence have to be in English?

The ‘Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication’ makes direct recommendations regarding language diversity in research assessment, evaluation, and funding systems:
 
  • Make sure that in the process of expert-based evaluation, high quality research is valued regardless of the publishing language or publication channel.
  • Make sure that when metrics-based systems are utilized, journal and book publications in all languages are adequately taken into account.

This chapter highlights those instances where the issue of language of research communication is relevant for the evaluation process in general and for peer review in particular. It will also discuss possible solutions and recommendations:

  1. Assessing the quality of research
  2. Barriers to research dissemination
  3. Increasing accessibility of research outputs in languages other than English
  4. Metrics informing experts
  5. Translation of scholarly work
  6. Internationalisation criteria and the question of language
  7. Selection of Peer Reviewers

The report "Overview of Peer Review Practices in the SSH", including chapter "Does excellence have to be in English? Language diversity and internationalisation in SSH research evaluation" (pp. 32-41) is openly available on the ENRESSH website.