How international readers view Chinese academic journals: a survey of Chinese-speaking scholars in the UK

To find out how international users gain access to and use Chinese- language academic journals, 37 Chinese mother-tongue scholars in the UK were interviewed. The results show that their usage of journals published in China in the Chinese language, although quite varied based on their disciplines, is limited, except for a few scholars from engineering and applied technology.The reasons why more than 70% of the respondents do not look up and use Chinese journals, although they say that they pay close attention to China’s research progress, are complicated. These reasons, as illustrated by the research, are examined in detail, and issues of quality, access, language and preconception are among the aspects discussed.The results show that the most pressing matters of the moment are to improve accessibility and to minimize the language barriers.