ESF releases the 2011 revised lists of European Research Index for Humanities

Strasbourg, 11 July 2011 - The European Science Foundation (ESF) has released 9 of 15 the European Research Index for Humanities (ERIH) Revised Lists 2011. Launched in 2002, the ERIH is a list of high-quality humanities journals intended to help identify research excellence in Europe and also serve as a tool of access to this research. The ERIH Revised List 2011 is an outcome of the second round of the ERIH project.

This second round (2008-2011) has involved a formal online feedback procedure, set up to enable researchers, editors, publishers and any other interested parties to provide information on humanities journals. This information includes i.a. subscriptions, the authors' countries of origin, as well as submission acceptance and rejection percentages. Over 3,540 forms were completed and these were reviewed and evaluated by Expert Panels resulting in the production of the ERIH Revised Lists 2011.

The aim of ERIH is to help European academics in the field of humanities to highlight and develop their research in an autonomous, rigorous and flexible way. The index also enables researchers to better understand and promote the national and international importance of their research.

"One key aim of the first phase of the project, which covers academic journals only, was to raise the threshold of editorial standards throughout Europe" Milena Žic Fuchs, Chair of the ESF Standing Committee for the Humanities commented. "Any journal accepted in the ERIH lists has had to meet stringent benchmark standards and we've noticed an increasing number of journals are adhering to these standards in order to seek inclusion in the ERIH lists."

Michael Worton, Chair of the ERIH committee said: "ERIH is a unique project because, in the context of a world dominated by English speaking publications, it highlights the vast range of world-class research published by humanities researchers in other European languages."

He continued: "The Revised List 2011 represents part of a dynamic ongoing process. ESF seeks to develop a framework that will not only promote the excellence of humanities research in Europe, but also help national research systems in Europe to determine the international impact of the research carried out in various disciplines in their country."

ERIH is the only reference index created and developed by European researchers both for their own purposes and in order to present their ongoing research achievements systematically to the rest of the world. Exploratory work is being developed to see how the ERIH lists can be linked to existing and proposed national databases; in order to take advantage of and bring together work being done in the national contexts.

The European Science Foundation coordinates collaboration in research, networking, and funding of international research programmes, as well as carrying out strategic and science policy activities at a European level. Its members are 78 national research funding and performing agencies, learned societies and academies in 30 countries. www.esf.org