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TEMPLATE FOR UPDATED WG WEBPAGE - EXAMPLE: Multilingualism and Language Biases in Research Assessment

Addressing language diversity and biases in research assessment

Mission

The Working Group (WG) on Multilingualism and Language Biases in Research Assessment aims to raise awareness across all fields on the importance of “multilingualism in practice of science, in scientific publications and in academic communications” (UNESCO).

Our mission is to provide institutions with guidelines, tools, and an implementation proposal for recognising, rewarding, and incentivising research carried out and communicated in all languages and in order to address language biases in metrics, expert-assessment and rankings.

Latest Activities

Recent activity updates:

Updated on 24 October 2024
  • Over the summer, WG members conducted three surveys. The Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems (IGSG) launched a survey on multilingualism and language biases aimed at researchers at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) included questions on multilingualism in it’s member survey, and the European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism (ECSPM) sent a survey to it’s members concerning language use in science communication and citizen science. Preliminary results from these surveys were presented in a public webinar on 26 September, 20. Almost all (96%) of the 169 registered participants who responded to poll questions agreed that researchers are advantaged or disadvantaged because of language skills and preferences, at least to some extent. For further resources and survey findings, please see the Resources section.

 

  • Preprint of a study recently published, Lucía Céspedes et al., Evaluating the Linguistic Coverage of OpenAlex: An Assessment of Metadata Accuracy and Completeness (2024). The study involved Vincent Larivière  from the Multilingualism WG and evaluates the linguistic coverage and metadata accuracy of OpenAlex. Manual validation of metadata on language in a sample of 6,836 articles in OpenAlex, of which 68% were in English, suggests a much more linguistically diverse landscape of global scholarly output than Web of Science (96% articles in English). Access the study here: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2409.10633

Resources

In this section, you will find the recent recording of the public webinar on Multilingualism and Language Biases, as well as useful links from recent survey findings.

Recent Materials

Here you can access the PDF of the slides from the recent webinar on Multilingualism and Language Biases in Research Assessment that was held on 26 September 2025, which includes The PDF includes an overview of the Working Group and results from a recent survey study.

Please click here to access the PDF.

Here you can access the PDF of the slides from the recent Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) Survey conducted in 2024.

Please click here to access the PDF.

Here you will find a PDF of a questionnaire addressed to the Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche [NationalResearchCouncilofItaly] (CNR) research community. As Italy’s largest public research institution, CNR is dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge across various fields and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. The questionnaire aims to investigate perceptions and reactions to multilingualism and language biases in scientific research within the CNR community.

Click here to access the PDF.

 

 

Here you find a PDF of slides from the European Civil Society Platform on Multilingualism (ECSPM) survey on language use in science communication and citizen science project.

Click here to access the PDF.

Here you will find a PDF of slides on the role of multilingual publications and an underdog complex that may lead to misguided internationalisation efforts in Brasil.

Click here to access the PDF.

Events

Updated on 4 September 2024:

Affiliated organisations

 

  • Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV), Finland
  • Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), Global
  • OPERAS AISBL, Europe
  • Coimbra Group, Europe
  • European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism, Europe
  • Research Council of Finland, Finland
  • Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU), Poland
  • ANR – French National Research Agency, France
  • cOAlition S, Europe
  • Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
  • Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain
  • CNRS, France
  • Eurodoc, Europe
  • European Alliance for SSH (EASSH), Europe
  • European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (ENRESSH),
    Europe
  • EuroScience – the European Association for the Advancement of Science and Technology, Europe
  • Global Young Academy (GYA)
  • Hanken School of Economics (Hanken), Finland
  • Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE), Europe
  • Italian national agency for the evaluation of universities and research institutes (ANVUR), Italy
  • NIFU – Nordic institute for studies in innovation, research and education, Norway
  • Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium
  • Sorbonne Université, France
  • Tampere University (TAU), Finland
 
  • TOUR4EU Tuscan Organisation of Universities in Europe (TOUR4EU), Italy
  • Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
  • Università degli Studi di Milano (UMI), Italy
  • Universities Norway (UHR), Norway
  • University of Antwerp, (UAntwerp), Belgium
  • University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  • University of Leiden (LEI), Netherlands
  • Università di Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB), Italy
  • University Paris Nanterre, France
  • University of Turku (UTU), Finland
  • Latin American Forum on Research Assessment (CLACSO-FOLEC), Argentina
  • Lusófona University, Portugal
  • Stockholm University, Sweden
  • translatE network on language barriers in environmental sciences, University of Queensland,
    Australia
  • UNESCO Chair on Open Science
  • University of Montréal, Canada
  • University of Lleida
  • University of Warwick
  • Fonds de recherche du Québec (observer)

Activities Archive

Previous activities:

  • WG had its kick-off meeting on 3 November 2023 and has regular monthly meetings the 1st Thursday of the month, 14:00-16:00 CET
  • WG was presented at DORA’s National and International Initiatives Discussion Group on 14 November 2023 and featured on DORA’s website on 18 January 2024
  • WG completed the Action plan in February 2024. This internal document describes and provides an overview and schedule of all WG activities and needed resources. Action plan will be updated during the WG duration
  • WG organized a hybrid satellite event on 14 March 2024 in context of MCAA annual conference in Milan, Italy 
  • WG and ECSPM co-organized a seminar on 4 April 2024 on Multilingualism in research and assessment in HEIs in Konstanz, Germany 
  • WG TF2 “Landscape Analysis” is currently preparing literature reviews, surveys, case-studies and bibliometric analyses 
  • WG TF3 “Policy Advice and Implementation” organized” a hybrid meeting 11 April hosted by the Coimbra Group in Brussels, Belgium
  • Questions on multilingualism included in the MCAA 2024 survey to all current or former researchers, whether MCAA members or not, was open until May 15, 2024
  • WG members contributed to a webinar 3 April 2024 celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication. Presentations are available on the event website. 
  • WG member Tatsuya Amano’s co-authored research published 13 March Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Academic publishing requires linguistically inclusive policies 
  • WG member Elea Gimenez-Toledo’s blogpost published 27 March 2024 in The Conversation: English dominates scientific research – here’s how we can fix it, and why it matters 

Structure and Implementation

Activities will be carried out by Task Forces (TF) producing specific Deliverables, and five interest groups (IG) will represent topics or stakeholders throughout activities.

Task Forces and their leads are:

– TF1: Coordination (lead: TSV)
– TF2: Landscape Analysis (lead: AMU, LEI, UAntwerp, ANVUR, ECSPM)
– TF3: Policy Advice and Implementation (lead: ANR, Coimbra Group, ISE, OPERAS, UHR, CNR, UTU)
– TF4: Communication (lead: MCAA)

The IGs and their coordinators are:

– Early career researchers (lead: Eurodoc)
– Civil society (lead: ECSPM)
– Intersectionality (lead: UNIMIB, CNR)
– Language learning and skills (lead: Tour4EU)
– Open Scholarly communication (lead: LEI, CLACSO/FOLEC)

The WG will implement several mechanisms for a continuous involvement of CoARA members and other organisations, making sure that they will be able to contribute to and be actively involved in, and benefit from the WG activities.

CoARA members will be invited to: contribute data;, respond to and distribute surveys; andparticipate in case studies for the landscape analyses; comment through open consultations on each core WG output; and participate in the IGs to make sure that the topics and stakeholder perspectives are taken into account throughout the WG activities.

The WG will also promote a series of online workshops and webinars to share, present and detail its outputs, for instance how to use the toolbox. Online meetings will be organised to cover several time zones to facilitate participation beyond Europe. In-person workshops can be held within events organised by WG members.

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