Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A national research-evaluation framework that counts a researcher's peer-reviewed article in a national-language journal as legitimate scholarly output -- not merely as 'outreach' subordinate to an English-language international publication -- is applying the Helsinki Initiative's core recommendation in practice.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A promotion and tenure policy that only credits publications in English-language, internationally indexed journals, treating national-language publication as unscored 'public engagement,' runs counter to the Helsinki Initiative's specific recommendation on research evaluation.
Editorial commentary
The Helsinki Initiative was published in 2019 as a joint statement from five organizations: the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, the Committee for Public Information, the Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing, Universities Norway, and COST Action ENRESSH (European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities). Its premise is that “research is international,” but that multilingual scholarship — publishing findings in languages beyond English — keeps locally and nationally relevant research usable by the audiences it is meant to serve, without which it loses much of its societal impact.
Core recommendations
- Reward researchers for sharing findings with audiences beyond academia, in multiple languages, rather than treating this as extracurricular.
- Protect national scholarly-publishing infrastructure and support national-language journals’ transition to open access.
- Ensure research-quality evaluation frameworks recognize publications regardless of the language they are published in.
The initiative is promoted through an #InAllLanguages campaign directed at policymakers, universities, funders, and researchers.
Relationship to responsible research assessment
The Helsinki Initiative’s third recommendation — evaluating research on its merits rather than by publication-venue proxies like language or journal prestige — sits within the same broader responsible-research-assessment movement as DORA and CoARA, and alongside the related concept of bibliodiversity in scholarly publishing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Helsinki Initiative a formal EU policy?
No — it is a voluntary policy declaration from a coalition of learned-society and research-evaluation organizations, not binding EU or national legislation; institutions and funders adopt its recommendations voluntarily.
Does it argue against publishing in English?
No — it explicitly frames research as international and does not discourage English-language or internationally indexed publication; it argues that non-English publication should also be recognized and supported, not that it should replace English-language publication.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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