From NewScientist: The developing world needs its own science journals

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Margaret A. Winker
President, WAME
Deputy Editor, JAMA
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To the sentence about non-Anglophone countries ("And in non-anglophone countries, journals in the locally used language can provide a useful channel by which to publicise local research that has appeared in international journals—typically in English.") I would like to add brief observations based on 6 years' involvement with the cover-to-cover translation to English of such a journal.

I'd argue that the best of all possible worlds is bilingual publication, simultaneously in the local language and the international one. There are many reasons, but editors might like this one best: bilingual journals' impact factors rise, yet they don't lose their local readership—so their "national impact factors" are quite healthy (Aleixandre Benavent R et al. Archivos de Bronconeumología: Among the 3 Spanish Medical Journals With the Highest National Impact Factors. Arch Bronconeumol 2004;40:563-569. Available at: http://www.archbronconeumol.org/cgi-bin/wdbcgi.exe/abn/abneng.mrevista.fulltext?pident=13069433). These journals remain the soil in which to cultivate local researchers and they have a fighting chance of fostering the research-to-practice links in their communities, even as they reach international readers. (If only databases like MEDLINE would clearly display that a "free full ENGLISH text" is available, I think they'd reach more and become healthier journals still.)

- Local language and bilingual journals are needed because it's a myth that all scientists read English easily. I've seen it suggested that these journals are needed to reach the politicians, implying that the scientists are all reading English fluently. I assure you, many are not, from practitioners to professors and heads of university departments.

- Local-language journals are successful to the extent they apply international standards, offering authors rigorous but helpful reviews—in other words, using peer review to help the authors make their papers good enough to stand up to international scrutiny once translated.

- If reviewers are to offer local authors' rigorous but helpful reviews, and if the number who read fluently in English is much lower than many might expect (my observation), it's far better if these reviewers are assessing papers in their local language.

Well, just my opinions based on watching the development of bilingual publication over these years!