“Today, the University of Tsukuba has announced that it has signed a contract with F1000 Research Ltd to develop the first open research publishing gateway that will enable researchers to publish in either English or Japanese.
Not only will the publishing gateway make it simple for authors affiliated with the University of Tsukuba to publish any research or data they wish to share rapidly, openly and transparently, but it will also enable those studying the humanities and social sciences to choose whether to publish in English or in Japanese.
Indeed, English holds a preeminent position as the “lingua franca” in international scientific communication, despite the majority of the world’s scholars not possessing English as their first language. This does not necessarily mean, however, that studies published in other languages are of less value or quality.
This forward-thinking publishing approach means that researchers specializing in fields such as humanities and social sciences will be able to publish in an international journal but choose which language they feel most comfortable writing in, as well as what befits their field of study the most.
Indeed, the humanities and social sciences fields are where publishing in a regional language would enable more profound understanding and knowledge sharing, given these academic disciplines are often dedicated to the study of philosophy, history, literature, society, law, economy, and so on of a specific culture. Japanese language research articles will include abstracts and metadata in both Japanese and English, and will be indexed in relevant bibliographic databases in both English and Japanese….”
