Objectives of the project

The objectives of this project are multiple:

• Making scientific knowledge available beyond the language boarders
• Creating a platform of editors
• Recognizing publication quality beyond English
• Creating a virtual research community in Europe beyond languages

Making scientific knowledge available beyond the language boarders

First there is a need to make literature on public administration, public policy and public management (more) available to researchers who are interested in this literature. Several databases and websites (e.g. JSTOR, Scholar Google) already exist for scientific journals in English. This project is unique, since it aims to include especially non-English journals in Europe. Obviously, the importance of English as a main vehicle for scientific communication is fully accepted and encouraged. However, given the current dominance of academic publications in English, the project’s distinct objective is to increase the impact of non-English journals in our field. This is crucial for two reasons. First, language is not neutral vis-à-vis the politico-administrative culture and the administrative history. Therefore, language itself is actually instrumental in understanding theoretical and empirical knowledge. Many words in official languages, such as specific labels for local governments, are not translatable. Also, imported English words in official languages, get different meanings, such as ‘agency’. A second reason is that knowledge production should be relevant and made relevant in all countries of the EU and therefore should be offered in official languages.
Research in public administration is often focussed on the experience in Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, the US or Australia and New-Zealand. Experiences in public administration in countries like Spain, Romania, Croatia, Finland or France are often disregarded if they are not available in English. These articles published in European public administration and management journals may well be interesting for people in Germany, France, Indonesia, Brazil or elsewhere, but those people can't use them at this stage because of the language barrier.

Creating a platform of editors

It is obvious that a platform of editors of the journals in the database will allow a comparison of issues such as publications as research output, based on research activities across Europe. Questions could be discussed such as: What are the similarities and the differences of research topics? What are the themes of the thematic issues in our journals? What are the possibilities of cross-boarder, cross-language cooperation between journals?
This EGPA platform of PA-related editors in Europe could also discuss shared technical issues of publications (such as electronic journals).

Recognizing publication quality beyond English

The ESF is establishing rankings of journals, and many national science foundations are also involved in this exercise. Especially in a field where statistics on citations and impact are less obvious, we still need a legitimate, discipline supported, and peers accepted list of journals beyond English based journals. It cannot be that excellent journals in national languages are are not even considered because of the language used itself.

Creating a virtual research community in Europe beyond languages

An ultimate objective is to create a virtual research community in Europe beyond the main official languages in which PA and related themes are treated. Similar research on a specific theme in Finnish, Greek, and Portuguese could be useful for a comparative study, for a meta-analysis, for a case-review, for literature mapping. This is impossible at this moment.
The journal database wants to bring a solution for this problem, by providing a database of which the content is easily available (through abstracts in the original language, in English, and in French) to researchers. Since this should be a public scientific good, this will be free of charge. This will facilitate the transfer of knowledge between European researchers and countries beyond the language issue.