2. April 2012 14:28
Early Career Researchers Manifesto “Changing Publication Cultures in the Humanities” now available
The recently published Early Career Researchers Manifesto “Changing Publication Cultures in the Humanities” is the outcome of the 2011 Early Career Researchers Forum “Changing Publication Cultures in the Humanities” (Humanities Spring 2011) which was organised under the leadership of the ESF Standing Committee for the Humanities (HUM (formerly SCH)) at National University Ireland, Maynooth, on 9-11 June 2011.
With the ‘Humanities Spring’ events, HUM (formerly SCH) wishes to mobilise the creative potential of the next generation of leading humanities scholars to inform European-level coordination and foresight processes regarding research activities in the humanities. For the 2011 event, a selected group of early career researchers was invited following a Europe-wide competion, to address the opportunities and challenges facing them as a consequence of changes in publication cultures in the humanities.
The document presents diagnoses of current problems and opportunities around the event’s four themes: engagement, impact, language and future. The issues discussed are those chosen by the particpating early career researchers. Overall, they identify a confident and proactive role for the humanities, one which can meet and address societal challenges. Their vision of a new publication culture in the humanities emphasises openness, including a strong endorsement of an open access approach. The models proposed are horizontal and dynamic, with research communities based on networking and interaction, and natural mechanisms of quality control operating as guides to members of a research community. Their vision of new publication media illuminates the enhanced and newly collaborative research interactions made possible by new forms of electronic publication, including the wider dissemination of research processes and accompanying resources as well as research results. Inter-, trans- and multidisciplinary research is firmly to the fore, linking a wide range of disciplines and potential audiences while the challenges of achieving multilingual research practices - supported by translation facilities - are sharply observed. The document culminates in recommendations to stakeholders encompassing publishers, funding agencies, universities and higher education institutions, research policy makers and early career researchers.
The Manifesto can be downloaded here.
