The Relevance of English in Colombian Scientific Research Awareness

Even though the majority of Colombian professors are also involved in research, they have limitations in their English language skills that separate them from the rest of the scientific society. Evidently, these limitations have become an obstacle in the awareness of professors’ modest, but no less important, research work. In order to carry out this study, we selected three remarkable higher education institutions of Pereira, Risaralda in Colombia. We used collected data from 2012 to 2015. A quantitative analysis of the number of articles in English in comparison to Spanish was done. Even though there has been an increasing number of articles in English, they are still limited. This research suggests an approach to evaluate the hypothesis raised by the authors that states that the low English-language proficiency of the scientists is affecting the visibility of Colombian and, overall, Latin American science. We propose to increase the visibility of Colombian science by publishing research papers in both languages, Spanish and in English. Finally, Latin American English writing skills require attention from their own governments to increase the awareness and contribution of these countries in a globalized world.