European Association of Science Editors

EASE publications

The European Association of Science Editors (EASE /ˈiːz/) is a non-profit membership organisation for people interested in science communication and editing. Founded in 1982, in France, EASE now has an international membership from diverse backgrounds, professional experiences, and job titles.

Activities

EASE helps its members keep up with trends in the rapidly changing environment of scientific publishing and sharpen their professional skills, by means of:

  • an electronic forum for exchanging shoptalk and ideas – the EASE-Forum
  • annual general meetings linked with interesting lectures
  • major conferences every 2–3 years (discounts available to EASE members)
  • sessions during major scientific events (e.g. a careers session during EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2010 in Turin, Italy - see video)
  • seminars and workshops on hot topics (discounts available to EASE members)
  • resources for editors, especially the Science Editors’ Handbook (2nd edition available in electronic form free of charge to EASE members) and EASE Toolkit for Journal Editors
  • educational tools for authors, like EASE Guidelines (freely available in over 20 languages), EASE Toolkit for Authors
  • support for useful initiatives, such as the global campaigns Healthcare Information For All by 2015 and AllTrials
  • advertisements for jobs, courses and services on the EASE website (free of charge for EASE members)
  • networking opportunities and contacts for freelancers
  • opportunities to meet international colleagues

Publications

Members

EASE has about 300 members (data from September 2017) who live in about 50 countries, not only in Europe but also in other parts of the world.

Members work in many disciplines and occupations: commissioning editors, academics, science translators, publishers, web and multi-media staff, indexers, statistical editors, science and technical writers, authors' editors, journalists, corporate communicators, proofreaders, production personnel, managing editors, etc. Just less than 10% of members claim to be chief editors of science journals.

Major conferences

EASE holds a conference every 3 or 2 years.[1] The next EASE conference will take place in 2018 in Bucharest, Romania. Previous conferences:

2016 Strasbourg, France[2]
2014 Split, Croatia[3]
2012 Tallinn, Estonia[4]
2009 Pisa, Italy[5]
2006 Krakow, Poland[6]
2003 Bath, United Kingdom
2003 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (joint meeting with AESE)
2000 Tours, France
1998 Washington, D.C., United States (joint meeting with CBE and AESE)
1997 Helsinki, Finland
1994 Budapest, Hungary
1991 Oxford, United Kingdom
1989 Ottawa, Canada (joint meeting with CBE and AESE)
1988 Basel, Switzerland
1985 Holmenkollen, Norway
1982 Pau, France

2009 conference: Integrity in Science Communication

The 2009 EASE Conference, was held in Pisa, Italy on 16–19 September 2009. It picked up the theme of the first World Conference on Research Integrity, which was held in Lisbon, Portugal on 16–19 September 2007. The first World Conference was a joint initiative of the European Science Foundation and the United States Office of Research Integrity; it provided a forum for discussion of strategies for harmonizing research misconduct policies and for promoting responsible research conduct. The 2009 EASE Conference explored these themes from the viewpoint of people involved with scientific journal editing and publishing.

Editors strive to ensure that the scientific research presented is correct, complete, accessible, retrievable and durable, i.e. to guarantee the physical integrity of the data. There is also a moral aspect to science communication, where editors have possibly a more difficult role to play, monitoring such aspects as conflict of interest, gender bias and guest authorship. The aim of the 2009 EASE Conference was to provide guidance to editors on ways in which they can monitor the physical and moral integrity of scientific communications passing through their hands, what to look out for and where they can turn for further advice. A draft version of the EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles was presented and discussed in Pisa.

History

EASE was formed in May 1982 in Pau, France, from the European Life Science Editors' Association (ELSE) and the European Association of Earth Science Editors (Editerra). The history of these organizations goes further back:

The European Association of Editors of Biological Periodicals (EAEBP) was formed in April 1967 in Amsterdam by Miriam Balaban and others.[7] EAEBP was renamed European Life Science Editors (ELSE) at its first General Assembly, held at the Royal Society in London in 1970.[8]

The European Association of Earth Science Editors (Editerra) was formed at a meeting of the Constituent Assembly of the European Association of Earth Science Editors, held in Paris from December 2–4, 1968, under the sponsorship of Unesco and the International Union of Geological Sciences.[9][8]

ELSE joined with Editerra to form the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) in 1982.[7] Concerns of the organization included the development of international standards for science journals, guidelines for authors whose first language was not English, republishing of articles in multiple languages, and the improvement of science communication generally.[10][11]

Affiliations

EASE is affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), and the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), has category A liaison status with the International Organization for Standardization (Technical Committee 46/subcommittee 9) (ISO) and is represented on committees of the British Standards Institution. Through its affiliation to IUBS and IUGS the Association is also affiliated to the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and is thereby in formal associate relations with UNESCO.[12]

EASE cooperates actively with Mediterranean Editors and Translators (MET), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the Association of Earth Science Editors (AESE). Its other links include the African Association of Science Editors, the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA), the Finnish Association of Science Editors and Journalists (FASEJ), the Society of English-Native-Speaking Editors (Netherlands) (SENSE), AuthorAID, and, in the UK, the Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP).

The European Association of Science Editors is a Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in England and Wales - Company Number 4049507. Registered Office: The Annals of Botany Company, The University of Exeter, Innovation Centre, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4RN, UK.

In the summer of 2012, the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) formally became a new HIFA2015 Supporting Organization. EASE supports the global initiative Healthcare Information For All by 2015 by advising authors to make abstracts of their papers highly informative, reliable, and easily understandable (see EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators of Scientific Articles).

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Past EASE Conferences 1982-2003 : EASE". www.ease.org.uk.
  2. ↑ "13th EASE Conference, 10-12 June 2016, Strasbourg, France : EASE". www.ease.org.uk.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑
  5. ↑
  6. ↑
  7. 1 2 O’Connor, Maeve (18 February 2012). "The origins of EASE" (PDF). European Science Editing. Association of Research Libraries. 38 (1): 39. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  8. 1 2 O'Connor, Maeve. "Editerra/EAEBP/ELSE/EASE history 1975 - 2012" (PDF). European Association of Science Editors (EASE). Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  9. ↑ "New Organizations : European Association of Earth Science Editors". FID News Bulletin. 19. General Secretariat of the International Federation for Documentation. 1969.
  10. ↑ Balaban, Miriam (September 1975). "Cooperation among journals: A European vantage point". IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication. PC-18 (3): 116–120. doi:10.1109/TPC.1975.6591169.
  11. ↑ O'Connor, Maeve (July 27, 1987). "Third World Seeks Place for lts Journals". The Scientist. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  12. ↑ NGOs maintaining official relations with UNESCO

Further reading

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