The European Association of Science Editors (EASE) is an internationally oriented community of individuals from diverse backgrounds, linguistic traditions and professional experience who share an interest in science communication and editing.
National journals in an international context
Professor Jüri Engelbrecht, Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn, Estonia
In most European countries, large or small, scientific publishing started after the foundation of academies or societies for fostering research. Besides scientific research, attention was often paid to publishing results of studies on national heritage. Estonia, for example, has published periodicals of societies since the mid-19th century. Now, in the 21st century, two streams of publishing can be clearly distinguished: (i) scientific and scholarly journals with high quality requirements striving to achieve excellence (published mainly in English) and (ii) scholarly publications focusing on studies on national heritage and nature (mostly in Estonian). The publications of the first group are all indexed in international databases, as are many although not all of the second group. High-level peer-reviewed publications certainly demonstrate the potential of a country’s research and enhance the visibility of research centres. These publications are also used to assess the quality of scientific output when making funding decisions. In general terms, besides the journals of the first group, which feature new scientific knowledge, the second group is needed as well because of the need to cover cultural aspects of scientific and other research. Taken together, all national scientific and scholarly publications contribute to the development of a scientific vernacular, which in turn is a basis for general scientific education. It depends very much on the community how all these aspects (excellence in research, culture and heritage, terminology and education) are interwoven into a whole – knowledge.