Support to Ukrainian Editors

Scholarly publishing in Ukraine needs your support

The invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 had heavily impacted the scientific activity and the production of knowledge in this country. The extension of the war zone across the country, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure did not spare higher education and research facilities. The Kharkiv University building was hit by a missile in the first days of the war, and the academic community struggles to continue working.

While, thanks to different programs such as Science for Ukraine, support was provided so far to Ukrainian researchers in all disciplines, this support is rarely extended to the other types of personnel working alongside researchers in knowledge production ; such as librarians, editorial staff, technicians and administrative staff at universities, research institutions and infrastructures.

SUES - Supporting Ukrainian Editorial Staff - is an initiative from several European organisations in scholarly communication: IBL-PAN (PL), OPERAS (BE), DOAJ (UK), DOAB (NL), EIFL (NL), AEUP (FR), with the support of a group of 30 French editors and publishers. It aims at supporting specifically all those who work at dissemination and communication knowledge in the scholarly publishing sector because they are also an essential component of the Ukrainian scientific life and culture.

Why is it important?

«In vain you will have acquired knowledge if you do not share it» says Devarim Rabbah. Supporting knowledge production in Ukraine implies to support its dissemination, circulation, sharing through the publications and those who work on it. Do you know that more than 1000 scholarly journals exist in the country ? More than 700 are open access and disseminated on the Uran portal

Academic book production is also important and more than 20 Ukrainian academic publishers are currently distributed on CEEOL portal

Those publications in all disciplines, from physics to literature through history, sociology and biology are the essential vehicles of knowledge created by ukrainian researchers. Editors, copy-editors, typesetters, proofreaders, translators, technical and administrative personnel working in the different publishing venues need your support to continue their mission, even in time of war : spread and share knowledge.

How your contribution will be used

We are currently gathering information from Ukrainian journals and publishers about their concrete need in terms of financial and technical support. In general, the need is to be able to pay the editorial staff to continue their work and publish the next issue of their journal, or book in the book series. The money collected will be divided into lump sums of 1500 euros for each journal or publisher. If we reach our target, we will be able to help 10 journals. Each time we go beyond by 1500 euros, we will be able to help another journal or publisher.

In the long term, the project aims at strengthening the connections and knowledge exchange to ensure the international presence and visibility of Ukrainian scholarly outputs.

Thanks to your contribution, they will be able to continue to disseminate knowledge through the scholarly publications in Ukraine. As any other country, the Ukrainian society needs to have access to knowledge to strive, create, communicate, and prepare for a better future.