Challenge to overcome language barriers in scientific journals: announcing a new initiative from the ISQua journal

Frequently, it is stated that research in non-English languages is less available and referenced than the one published in English, and that important information published in languages other than English may be probably lost or, in practice, non-existent for the scientific community as a whole. Additionally, non-English speaking readers may find difficult to understand and eventually use or be aware of scientific papers published in English, even though they may be potentially relevant for their field of interest. Furthermore, writing in a language that is not your mother tongue, as it is the case of English for many researchers, is not easy. Publishing in English when the original research is in another language may be costly because in most cases professional support for translation is needed, and costs for this process can exceed €1000 (1300 US $) per article. Therefore, researchers from non-English speaking countries have to overcome significant barriers to see their work published, and also …