OPERAS | Promoting balanced multilingualism in open science and scholarly communication
« Multilingualism is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of inclusive, pluralistic, and sustainable societies, as well as of open and equitable scholarly communication. International frameworks such as UNESCO’s 2003 Recommendation on Multilingualism and the 2021 Recommendation on Open Science, alongside initiatives like the 2019 Helsinki Initiative, have underscored its role in ensuring research impact, preserving local knowledge, and fostering trust between science and society. Building on this momentum, a wide range of projects across Europe and beyond—such as DIAMAS, CoARA, GoTriple, and OPERAS’ own initiatives—are addressing language biases in research assessment, promoting multilingual metadata and discovery platforms, and developing technology-aided translation and collaborative tools.
OPERAS advances the idea of “balanced multilingualism” in this policy brief, which seeks to challenge the hegemony of English without dismissing the value of a shared language. (…) »
