Language of citation and publishing performance of graduate students in French-speaking countries with different economic and linguistic advantages

Students and researchers from the Global North are more successful in academia than those from the Global South due to clear economic and linguistic advantages (Amano and Sutherland 2013; Das et al. 2013), as well as other historical factors (Trisos et al. 2021). While economic and linguistic factors individually create important barriers for researchers to survive and succeed in academia, the current situation is such that the wealthiest countries, mostly from the Global North, are also the most linguistically equipped to perform and communicate research (O’Neil 2018). Researchers from the Global South thus face two gigantic challenges: performing research with limited resources (e.g., access to journals, laboratory equipment, and funding) and learning a new language to have access to science and share research in the “international scientific scene” (Nuñez et al. 2019). This discrepancy in the potential of researchers to excel and reach leadership positions in academia is a huge impediment to addressing planetary challenges that require global solutions (Nuñez et al. 2021).

English is the most used language in science (Montgomery 2004; Englander and Corcoran 2019) and is a requirement for publication in major journals in most fields. As a consequence, native English-speaking students and researchers have clear advantages in writing, reading, and comprehending literature in their subject and, hence, have easier access to scientific content. Students and scientists speaking English as a foreign language (EFL), on the other hand, must spend time overcoming this barrier and do not typically find the necessary infrastructure to remediate it (Ramírez-Castañeda 2020). Ultimately, this means that EFL researchers experience additional bottlenecks before they can communicate their research internationally and be recognized by the scientific community (Amano et al. 2016). Furthermore, studies have recently highlighted the weakness of a monolingual academic system (Konno et al. 2020; Nuñez and Amano 2021). For example, the fact that researchers from the Global North typically cite English literature and ignore research written in other languages might bias the results of large meta-analyses and potentially mislead decision-making.

By understanding what factors correlate with language barriers and scientific success, new solutions may be developed to begin to address identified gaps (Amano et al. 2016; Nuñez et al. 2019; Tseng et al. 2020). Here, we conducted a study on the citation pattern of masters (MSc) and doctorate (PhD) students in biological sciences from universities in three French-speaking countries (Algeria, Canada, and France) where English is the first (English part of Canada), second (French part of Canada and France), or third language (Algeria) (Fig. 1). We specifically analyzed the frequency of citation of English literature compared with French and other languages. We selected a set of universities from each region that have biological sciences and provide online access to theses (Table 1). For each university and degree, we randomly selected a set of theses and recorded the number of references cited in each, while also individually categorizing the language of each reference (English, French, and other). We then assessed the publishing performance of 20 students from two universities in each of the four regions by assessing the number of papers published, the occurrence of an impact factor in the journal selected for publication, and the total number of citations that the publications received. We finally tested for the relationship between the proportion of English citations in a thesis and the publishing performance of PhD students.

Based on 299 MSc and 278 PhD students who graduated between 2006 and 2021, our results showed that students who graduated from Algerian universities cited less English literature than those who graduated from France (z = 3.08, P = 0.0002), Canada-QC (z = 8.34, P < 0.0001) and Canada-BC (z = 11.71, P < 0.0001), and this pattern was more pronounced in MSc than PhD theses (z = 8.70, P < 0.0001) (Fig. 2). The least to the most English-dominant citations for MSc are Algeria (35.9%), France (48.1%), Canada-QC (94.8%), and Canada-BC (98.6%) and similarly for PhD, Algeria (70.3%), France (93.2%), Canada-QC (96.5%), and Canada-BC (99.6%) (Supplementary Table S2).

There was a significant difference among regions in publishing performance of PhD students where students graduating from France, Canada-QC, and Canada-BC showed higher number of publications published during their PhD (z = 2.94, P = 0.003; z = 2.70, P = 0.007; z = 2.89, P = 0.003; respectively), higher probability of publishing in an impact factor journal (z = 5.20, P < 0.0001; z = 5.84, P < 0.0001; z = 6.47, P < 0.0001; respectively), and number of citations that the publications received (corrected for the time since publication) (z = 6.98, P < 0.0001; z = 6.79, P < 0.0001; z = 6.60, P < 0.0001; respectively) than Algerian students (Fig. 3).

We found a positive correlation among the proportion of English citations in a PhD thesis, the total number of papers published (z = 2.98, P = 0.002), the probability of publishing in an impact factor journal (z = 4.54, P < 0.0001), and the number of citations received since the publication (z = 5.72, P < 0.0001) (Fig. 4). These correlations were mainly driven by the geographic variation in the proportion of English citations and academic performance across the four regions; specifically, students at Algerian universities had the least English-dominant literature and had a lower likelihood of publishing in an impact factor journal and their papers received fewer citations compared with those who graduated from French and Canadian institutions.

Our study found that students from different French-speaking countries with different levels of English proficiency showed different tendencies of citing English literature; students from universities in more English-proficient places cited dominantly English literature, whereas those from less English-proficient places showed a weaker use of English. Moreover, the more English-proficient the area, the higher the students’ performance in publishing research.

Given that English dominates the literature, an English-dominant reference list is generally the norm. The observed deviation of this norm in Algeria could be explained by a few nonmutually exclusive hypotheses. First, Algerian students typically have low English proficiency, which might force them to read French documentation and avoid English literature. This is particularly true for Algerian MSc students who are given only one semester to perform their project and write and defend their theses and thus do not have enough time to struggle with understanding English documents. This low English proficiency is mainly due to the quasi-absence of English in the curriculum, the lack of English training prior to graduate school, and the French-language dominance in the Algerian higher education system (Daoud 2000; Mohammed and Brahim 2010). Thus, these students probably find it easier to read, analyze, and cite studies published in more familiar languages (Guardiano et al. 2007). Studies supporting this hypothesis showed that EFL graduate students spend more time reading and understanding papers in English compared with papers written in their native language (Ramírez-Castañeda 2020). Second, due to historical reasons, it is also likely that a large proportion of Algerian literature is written in French, which restricts students to mostly cite literature in French. For instance, many of the pioneering books describing the fauna of Algeria were written by French authors in the 19th century during the so-called “Exploration Scientifique de l’Algérie” (Lucas 1849).

Although the observed geographic variation in academic performance could be partly explained by the language, other factors such as socioeconomic status, level of training (university and supervisors), and history play a crucial role (Amano and Sutherland 2013; Das et al. 2013; Nuñez et al. 2021). The fact that graduate students from France do as well as those graduating from native English-speaking countries such as Canada not only suggests that local supervisors, institutions, and academic systems can provide the adequate environment required to succeed in research, but also that English as a second official language is not as limiting as when it is the third or fourth language. Within and across regions, our results suggest that the academic environment associated with low English proficiency forces students to publish in low-profile journals that do not attract visibility and typically receive fewer citations (Nuñez et al. 2019). Ultimately, the absence of an English-dominant academic environment reduces the competiveness of EFL students in the academic world and creates isolated scientific minorities that do not reach leadership positions in academia (Lund 2021).

The pattern observed here most likely occurs in other regions where English is a foreign language (65% of countries). This is, therefore, a global problem in science that prevents the real “open-science” objective from progressing beyond the open-access initiative. Among the top-priority solutions to solve the language barrier is the translation of scientific articles (or at least the abstract) into different languages. While publishers could endorse such a measure, the scientific community could also immediately create a sustainable system by introducing a reward system that the scientific community recognizes and values (similar to the review process) where scientists who are proficient in English and (or) other languages offer linguistic services such as language editing of draft papers written by non-native English speakers. One effective way to manage such services is to integrate them in public repository platforms such as BioRxiv and Authorea (Khelifa et al. 2021). Peer-proofing systems in preprint repositories should generate recognition metrics for contributors, similar to the peer-review metric points in Publons. Another solution might be that journals could incorporate a preliminary linguistic revision prior to the typical scientific peer-review for EFL scientists and such revisions should be recognized as linguistic peer-review by Publons. Such measures will solve a large problem in science accessibility and citation of studies published in different languages and, hence, may reduce the bias of unilingual literature reviews (Konno et al. 2020), thereby helping EFL students publish in high-impact journals that increase the visibility of scientific minorities (Lebel and McLean 2018; Nuñez et al. 2019). Some journals have started tackling the language barrier using different initatives. For instance, journals such as Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, Community Development and Human-Wildlife Interactions have already established a language assisting system for authors who are not proficient in English. European Journal of Ecology states in their homepage that the journal provides “free language-correction services for authors from non-English speaking regions” (journals.ku.edu/EuroJEcol/about, access date: 19 September 2021). Also, Conservation Biology invites authors to “upload a translation of the manuscript as an online appendix (i.e., supporting information)” (conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/15231739/homepage/forauthors.html, access date: 19 September 2021).

In addition, EFL institutions and researchers should meet the scientific community halfway. Knowing that English is the lingua franca in science (O’Neil 2018), EFL institutions should renovate their strategic planning to improve the English proficiency of students well before graduate school. This might involve increasing the mandatory number of learning hours in English, introducing new courses for academic communication, promoting exchange programs with foreign institutions that teach and do research in English, and engaging in collaborations with students and researchers who are proficient in English. All these measures, including the international collaborations, are nowadays readily implemented with video and audio conferencing, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that temporarily shifted the pedagogical and academic landscape to online-based communication and e-learning in many regions arounds the world (Reshef et al. 2020).

The exorbitant disparity in academic success that currently exists could be reduced if the scientific community, research institutions, publishers, funders, and governments take part in undertaking actionable measures to overcome the language barrier, socioeconomic differences, cultural privileges, and discrimination. This is crucial for the global inclusion of under-represented scientists in academia and the diversification of opinions and solutions for contemporary planetary problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and disease epidemics (Amano and Sutherland 2013; Angulo et al. 2021). An increasing number of calls from the scientific community to address issues of diversity and inclusion in science have been observed during the last few years. Less commonly noted, but certainly urgent, is the need for coordinated measures and strategic commitment to improve knowledge transfer and balance the representation of EFL researchers in the rapidly growing body of scientific literature.

RK is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project: P400PB_191139). We thank two anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their helpful comments and suggestions, which improved the quality of an earlier version of the manuscript. We are grateful to Leithen K. M’Gonigle for his fruitful comments on the manuscript.