Publishing in English or the Native Language: A Comparison Between the Hard Sciences, Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Sciences

What is the percentage of scientific publications in English? Who are the researchers, who publish in English rather than in another language such as their local language? Are there institutional or disciplinary differences? Using a survey comprising more than 800 published authors in Springer Nature journals we find that, non-native speaking authors publish roughly 60 percent of their articles in English. This number is higher in the hard sciences as compared to the social sciences and for researchers working in the university as compared to a research institute or the private sector. In addition, our results indicate that researchers in Europe have a higher likelihood to publish in English than researchers in Asia or Latin America. Finally, and this is a more motivational factor, the more a person thinks that publishing in English increases the reputation of their research, the more they will publish in English. In contrast, institutional pressures to publish in English do not seem to influence researchers’ language choice.