We investigate the state of multilingualism across the social sciences and humanities (SSH) using a comprehensive data set of research outputs from seven European countries (Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Flanders [Belgium], Norway, Poland, and Slovenia). Although English tends to be the dominant language of science, SSH researchers often produce culturally and societally relevant work in their local languages. We collected and analyzed a set of 164,218 peer-reviewed journal articles (produced by 51,063 researchers from 2013 to 2015) and found that multilingualism is prevalent despite geographical location and field. Among the researchers who published at least three journal articles during this time period, over one-third from the various countries had written their work in at least two languages. The highest share of researchers who published in only one language were from Flanders (80.9%), whereas the lowest shares were from Slovenia (57.2%) and Poland (59.3%). Our findings show that multilingual publishing is an ongoing practice in many SSH research fields regardless of geographical location, political situation, and/or historical heritage. Here we argue that research is international, but multilingual publishing keeps locally relevant research alive with the added potential for creating impact.

Centre for R and D Monitoring Faculty of Social Sciences University of Antwerp Antwerp Belgium

CSC IT Center for Science Espoo Finland

Department of Communication University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark

Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia

Faculty of Education University of Primorska Koper Slovenia

Federation of Finnish Learned Societies Helsinki Finland

Institute of Psychology and Education Kazan Federal University Kazan Russia

Ministry of Higher Education and Science Agency for Science and Higher Education Copenhagen Denmark

Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation Research and Education Oslo Norway

Research Office Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Scholarly Communication Research Group Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Poznań Poland

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