CoARA WG on Multilingualism will organize a public webinar on Thursday 26 September 2024 from 15:00 to 16:30 CEST on multilingualism and language biases in research assessment. Register here.
In the webinar, which takes place on the European Day of Languages, the WG action plan, on-going work and opportunities for engagement will be presented, with time for questions and discussion.
The event will be held remotely (on Zoom). Registration (with short optional questionnaire) here. Personal data is processed in accordance with the privacy statement for TSV Publication Forum's events. The Zoom link will be sent to registered participants by email. The recording of the webinar and presentations will be made available after the event on the CoARA WG webpage.
Program:
- Opening: Emmanuelle Gardan (Coimbra Group)
- WG presentation: Janne Pölönen (Federation of Finnish Learned societies - TSV)
- Results of surveys to researchers
- National Research Council of Italy: Ginevra Peruginelli (Institute of Legal Informatics and Judicial Systems/CNR)
- Marie Curie Alumni Association: Tereza Šímová (MCAA)
- European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism: Theo Marinis (University of Konstanz/ECSPM)
- Bibliometric analyses: André Brasil (CWTS/Leiden University)
- Focus groups on policy advice and implementation: Monica Dietl (Initiative for Science in Europe - ISE)
- Engaging with WG activities and closing of the webinar
According to the 1st core commitment of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, changes in assessment practices should enable recognition of the broad diversity of valuable contributions that researchers make to science and for the benefit of society, including diverse outputs beyond journal publications and irrespective of the language in which they are communicated.
A thematic Working Group on Multilingualism and Language Biases in Research Assessment has been established by members of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), which aims:
- to raise awareness across all fields about the importance of “multilingualism in practice of science, in scientific publications and in academic communications” (UNESCO recommendation on Open Science);
- to provide institutions with guidelines, toolbox and implementation proposal for recognizing, rewarding and incentivizing research carried out and communicated in all languages, and for addressing language biases in metrics, expert-assessment and rankings.
Building on previous efforts, such as the Leiden manifesto, Helsinki initiative, FOLEC-CLACSO principles and ECSPM declaration, WG highlights that language biases and language priorities in research assessment are one of the most important sources of global and socio-economic inequality in science. The consequences affect researchers from all fields and citizens across all countries.
For more information: Janne Pölönen, WG Coordinator, janne.polonen[at]tsv.fi