The Impact Factor in non-English-speaking countries Gregorio Gonza´lez-Alcaide • Juan Carlos Valderrama-Zuria´n • Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent Received: 6 February 2012 / Published online: 23 March 2012 Ó Akade´miai Kiado´, Budapest, Hungary 2012 Abstract The representativeness of the ISI-Thomson Impact Factor rankings and the existing relationship between countries’ national languages and the diffusion of scientific publications is analyzed. We discuss literature on the Impact Factor related to language use, publication strategies for authors and editors from non-English-speaking countries, the effects of the inclusion of a new journal in the ISI-Thomson databases and the scientific policies articulated in some non-English-speaking countries. The adoption of the Impact Factor as the valuation criterion for scientific activities has favoured the consolidation of English language journals in the diffusion of scientific knowledge. The vernacular lan- guages only conserve part of their importance in certain disciplines, such as Clinical Medicine or Social Sciences and Humanities. The Impact Factor, invented over 50 years ago now, could be a limitation for non-English authors and scientific journals, and does not consider some widely used practices among the scientific community concerning the development of Internet as a means for the diffusion of knowledge. Keywords Journal Impact Factor Á Language Á Scientific literature Á Publishing Introduction The representativeness of the ISI-Thomson Impact Factor rankings, mainly dominated by publications in English, is a subject that has attracted special interest in Central and South G. Gonza´lez-Alcaide (&) Á J. C. Valderrama-Zuria´n Departamento de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentacio´n, Universitat de Vale`ncia, Valencia, Spain e-mail: gregorio.gonzalez@uv.es G. Gonza´lez-Alcaide Á J. C. Valderrama-Zuria´n Á R. Aleixandre-Benavent Unidad de Informacio´n e Investigacio´n Social y Sanitaria-UISYS, Palau de Cervero´. 4, Cisneros Square, 46003 Vale`ncia, Spain R. Aleixandre-Benavent Universitat de Vale`ncia, CSIC, Valencia, Spain 123 Scientometrics (2012) 92:297–311 DOI 10.1007/s11192-012-0692-y