The National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) today hosted a conference organized by FECYT and PERTE New Language Economy to analyze the possibilities of increasing the use of Spanish in science.
The special commissioner for the PERTE New Economy of Language, Cristina Gallach, explained that at this moment there is a high level of scientific dissemination for society that is done in Spanish, but both in publications and in relations between scientists it continues to predominate clear use of English.
In this sense, Aguilar has argued that “it is not easy to change the current scientific publication system, which is well consolidated with reference journals in English, which have generated a system that gives scientists a lot of security and is difficult to change.”
However, he has highlighted the “important weight” that Spain has in the transfer and dissemination of scientific knowledge to society.
“There are many projects that work in this line, which have financial support from FECYT, which this year has five million euros to support this work,” Aguilar specified.
In his opinion, there are key elements, such as Office C, dependent on FECYT, which is in charge of advising and simplifying scientific language for the Congress of Deputies, or “the extremely rich space for dissemination that is Latin America, which we aspire to also have that importance in scientific publication in Spanish».
For the director of FECYT, it would be good if this outreach work could be measured so that it becomes another merit in the scientists’ curriculum, as is the case with teaching, research or scientific publication.
However, he has recognized that it is “very complicated” to establish a scale to measure disclosure because the formats in which it is produced are multiplying and right now there is a significant explosion.
The use of Spanish in science is one of the objectives of the PERTE Nueva Economía de la Lengua, which also focuses on reinforcing the use of Spanish in artificial intelligence or the digital world.
Gallach has detailed that to achieve “results” in these objectives it will have a budget of 1100 million European funds until 2025.