TRANSLATION PROJECT IMPACT STUDY |
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Brief summary of results from Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ukraine Introduction Translation Project (TP) is a network program of Soros Foundations since 1995. Is twofold goal, as articulated in the OSI strategy is:
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| Within those three general goals, all countries participating in the
project are developing national strategies tailored according to the local
needs and the priorities of the respective national foundation. Project
priorities are generally defined having in mind local publishing and
translation capacities, budget constrains, traditions in academic
translations, etc. |
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| The three impact studies summarized below are conducted in the period
April 2002-January 2003 in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ukraine by local
researchers and Soros foundations’ staff, under the guidance of Next Page
Foundation. The studies’ major aim is to answer the question to what
extent the project had fulfilled the above goals. In what sense it had or
had not influenced the politics of translations? Could it claim to have
produced any significant change in education, in publishing, in opening
the academia? Are its mechanisms and procedures appropriate for the
project's goals?
At the time the studies have started, a complimentary aim was to provide recommendations for the future development of the project. With the OSI decision, however, to discontinue the project in 2003, this goal was realized only partially, with short-term recommendations being provided at the end of the studies. A fully comprehensive study of the impact of translations would "map"
the whole field of translations and academia in the last years without
confining it to foundational support thus allowing a clearer picture of
the context and the role of Translation Project in it to be drawn. Due to
its limited resources, though, the current study was restricted to two
major areas: |
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| 1. evaluating the impact of books supported with view of the academia,
readers' demand, broader audiences' response;
2. evaluating the impact on the publishing sector and translation
capacities |
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| Research in the 3 countries followed a single model only in very
general terms – scale, methodology and emphasis differ significantly.
Despite that, certain methodological tools common for the three
(publishing sector statistics, bibliographical data, questionnaires,
in-depth interviews, citation indexes, sales reports, etc.) allow for
comparisons and generalizations to be made without the risk of
manipulating the data. |
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| Here is a table with basic information about the project: |
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| country period # supported titles # published titles total budget for
grants (in USD)
Bulgaria 1996 -2001 125 84 402 432 Lithuania 1992-2001 259 NA app. 1 842 707 Ukraine 1998-2001 331 143 1 054 302 |
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| TP continues functioning beyond 2001 but the study covers only the
periods indicated above.
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Summary of major results
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| I. TP and the publishing industry |
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| The fall of communism brought about a great boom in publishing of both
translation and original works. In the last 5-6 years, however, both in
Bulgaria and Ukraine the number of translations of all genres decreases
(it is 5 % at the moment in Ukraine, in Bulgaria it dropped down from 35 %
in 1995 to 28 % of all books in 2000) but at the same time non-fiction
books increase as percentage of all translations published annually. In
Lithuania the opposite tendency is observed: production of translations is
growing steadily, from 3.9% of all books in 1990 to 11% in 1999.
Due to the strikingly low number of translations published in Ukraine,
OSI-supported titles form a significant part of all translations in the
country – 15 % and thus influence the field significantly. |
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| Analysis of sales data and interviews prove the intuition that
publishing translations of non-fiction is still a highly risky business
which is bringing low revenues. In Bulgaria, for example, non-fiction
literature forms up to 30 % of the production, the revenue is up to 5 % of
their total revenue. For Ukrainian publishers for whom non-fiction is 3-10
% of their total production, it brings only from 2% to 5 % of their total
revenue.
On the overall, translations of non-fiction have a slow turnover. Sales
report show that 60% of the print run in Ukraine is sold in the first year
after the publication and 100% - in 3 years period while in Bulgaria and
Lithuania this period is longer – up to 5-6 years (with extremes up to 8
years in Lithuania). Thus, second editions are rare – only 3 titles from
143 in Ukraine and 1 from 84 in Bulgaria. Still, 38 % of the publishers
claim that they make profit from sales of the supported books. |
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| Different level of outside funding is declared as an absolute
condition for continuing publishing translations in humanities by all
publishers. Ukrainian publishers usually look for funding even for
publications with commercial potential. Provided that Translation project
ceases to exist 95 % of the Bulgarian publishers interviewed will choose
either to simply stop working on such titles or look for alternative
funding sources. Only 5 % declare that they would invest in more
commercial publications in order to cross-subsidize translations in
humanities. At the same time, in Bulgaria the top 20 publishers in
humanities receive support from various donors for only 25 % of their
annual production. There is no sufficient data, however, to help interpret
this finding. One possibility is that individual grants for only ¼ of the
publishers’ list effectively and indirectly support the overall viable
functioning of the house and facilitates financial planning. A more
problematic assumption is that subsidies are used directly to cover costs
of the whole publishers’ lists.
The only 2 commercially viable publishers taking advantage of TP grants
in Bulgaria stress that participation in the project contributes to their
public image and helps them to establish contacts with publishers and
academics both internationally and at home. |
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| Translation Project is positively the biggest grant-giving program in
the field of translations in social sciences and humanities. Other major
donors include governmental agencies for promotion of a national culture
(e.g. Goethe Institute/Internaciones, French Cultural Center,
KulturKontakt, American Cultural Center), national governments (Ministry
of Culture) or international bodies (Fund for Central and East European
Book Projects – Amsterdam). Apart of the scale of funding, a major general
difference between TP and those other programs is that more often than not
there are fluctuations in those programs’ strategies and implementation
techniques while TP carries out a continuity of its strategic goals
throughout the years. TP is also the only program (with the exception of
CEEBP) whose mechanisms of support actively promote a market-oriented
approach. |
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| In each of the three countries, the project greatly contributed in
raising professional standards in publishing. TP-supported titles have
higher than average quality of translation and editing. In Ukraine, where
the development of a tradition of translation is a program priority, the
project has also parallel activities (translators’ workshops, discussions)
to advance this goal. Furthermore, the project encourages young
translators – about 20% previously unknown names take part in the
competition annually. Bulgarian publishers stress that the project’s
grants allow them to pay higher that average fees for translation and
editing – provided that translation fees are ridiculously low and do not
allow for a translator to make a leaving out of his/her work, this
provides an incentive for quality translators and editors to stay in the
profession.
The project also promoted a culture of respect of copyright and raising standards of business operations. Publishers view the project as an “eye-opener” for the world publishing scene – the lists of recommendations help them to get reliable information on current quality titles and tendencies in humanities publishing. They also stress that the project was helpful in encouraging active and diverse marketing strategies and in linking publishers with academics. 61% of the publishers in Bulgaria pointed that print-runs of the
supported books is higher then the average thus allowing for the book to
be available at the market for a longer period. |
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| II. audiences: transformation of higher education and general
audience |
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| Effective transformation of higher education in humanities and social
sciences in Central and Eastern Europe required much more than
availability of translations – it required legal changes, new approaches
to teaching and new institutional culture. However, without free access to
key texts in one’s own language for students and professors alike changes
in the curriculum are hardly possible. All interviewees and other data
support the claim that the project strongly influenced the processes of
transformation in higher education. The degree and the forms of this
influence vary in the different countries. While in Bulgaria, the most
tangible impact is observed in the departments of Sociology, Cultural
Studies and Philosophy, in Lithuania it was detected in Communication
Faculty where Political studies, Journalism and International Relations
are taught. Supported books are widely used in courses preparation but are
also strongly presented in universities’ reading lists – they form an
average of 40 % of all titles in the reading lists of 11 disciplines in
Sofia University; the figure is also 40 % in Ukraine while this percentage
is only 8,4 % in Lithuania. Surprisingly, answers of the professors in the
same faculties in Lithuania contradict the results of the reading lists’
analysis – they claim to recommend more than half of the books in their
reading lists. On the overall, Lithuanian TP books are more often quoted
in bachelor degree thesis than in master degree thesis. |
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| The usage of translations in general varies enormously between
different faculties in Bulgarian universities. Students and professors in,
say, economics read predominantly in original - 95 % of the books,
textbooks and articles in their reading lists are in English or other
Western language while in Philosophy, Cultural Studies and Sociology up to
70 % of the books are translations. Consequently, students in those
departments are mostly using TP-supported books: 66% of them claim that
the availability of those translations had influenced the choice of topics
for their writings (course works, MA and BA thesis, etc.) and academic
interests. This data is confirmed by statistics of quotation in the
thesises. |
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| The above differences, of course, reflect not only the different
dynamics of the project development but also the diversity of the higher
education system in the 3 countries.
A major impact of the project, most often pointed to by the respondents
from all of the 3 countries is the fact that due to the project’s
translations new concepts in humanities and social sciences are introduced
in the academia and become an integral part of the “academic landscape”
and the local language. At the same time, this claim is difficult to prove
as a quotation index survey shows that only 36 from all 83 titles
published so far were quoted in Bulgarian books and periodicals. The
average index of quotation is 3,5 quotations per title. Anderson’s
Imagined Communities holds the first place in quotations, followed by
Kissinger’s Diplomacy and Dahrendorf’s The Modern Social Conflict.
However, the study cannot cover Bulgarian university textbooks which as a
rule are published without bibliography (!). |
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| Furthermore, supported books influence decision- and opinion-makers
such as politicians, experts on cultural, social and political issues,
media and NGOs. An interesting example for such indirect influence is the
wide usage of TP-supported books as theoretical ground for numerous
sociological studies which form the ground for policy actions. Another
example mentioned in interviews is that a more complex understanding of
political concepts such as “left’/”right”, “liberalism”, etc. have started
being used in Bulgarian public debate after the publication of authors
such as Hayek, Bobbio or Dahrendorf. Those have indisputably also
influenced much more the politically active NGOs in the country than the
academia. |
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| TP-supported books in the 3 countries are highly covered by electronic
and printed media, not only professional one. All publishers in Bulgaria,
however, stress that media advertisement does not have direct effect on
sales. The study in Ukraine shows that there is a lack of well targeted
strategy and promotion in academia. On the contrary, the results from
Bulgaria and Lithuania confirm that the academia is identified as the most
important target group and the publishers promote their books through
relations with professors, university libraries, and direct contact with
students. While the titles supported are widely known, the project itself
lacks visibility, at least in Bulgaria: as many as 80 % of nearly 300
students do not recognize the name and the logo of Translation project.
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| Distribution of TP-supported books faces all the drawbacks of the
distribution systems in the 3 countries. Lithuanian project is the only
one which chooses to distribute significant number of copies (300) for
free by donating them to libraries. Ukrainian study does not focus
specially on distribution, but points that a survey at bookshops proves
that in 2001 the only bestselling books in humanities are philosophy
titles in Russian translation. The Bulgarian study also provides some
thought-provoking results. All publishers admit that the appearance of new
bookshops in the capital is a positive development which for the first
time allow for the books to be on the market for a longer period and for
publishers to get in-time payments. In fact all of them sale in the same
5-6 bookshops, with “Nisim” bookshop occupying the absolute first place
due to its professional staff. While number of bookshops is increasing,
however, there is a gradual decrease in print runs: from 1000-1500 in 1997
to 700-1000 in 2001. There is almost no distribution in the country: the
few sales there are made by direct orderers or during the promotion trips
of publishers. |
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| Reading in libraries still seem to be the most popular way of
accessing the books - research on libraries demonstrates that the readers
demand for TP-supported books exceeds the average demand for titles of
this kind.
In Bulgaria the supported titles are read, borrowed and photocopied more often than the average readers’ demand. Titles in cultural studies, sociology and philosophy are more requested than the others - those disciplines are the predominant in the list of supported titles as well. Ukrainian data is even more remarkable: for 16 weeks period there were 9 001 queries of the books. Again, books in philosophy (26.4 %), cultural theory (20%), political history (12.6%) and history (12.4%) are mostly asked for.
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| III. project development and project management |
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| Disciplines
The ratio between titles from different disciplines remains relatively steady throughout the years of the project implementation. In Bulgaria titles in political science and political theory are the most popular (18 % of all titles supported); in Lithuania the lead is taken by philosophy titles (22%) and by cultural studies and sociology (25 %) in Ukraine. In Ukraine and Lithuania, both analyses of the applications versus approved grants as well as interviews demonstrate a clear tendency of the decision-takers in promoting certain issues so that almost all applications in philosophy, sociology, cultural studies and on civil society issues receive grants. The program promotes contemporary tendencies in social sciences and
humanities by supporting titles originally published after the 70s: The
percentage of the contemporary titles is high (average 65 % in Bulgaria
and 77% in Ukraine) and is increasing during the years. In 2002 the titles
supported in Bulgaria are exclusively contemporary. |
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| The lists of recommended titles in Bulgaria are used more as guiding
framework than as an obligation concerning the approval of application.
The numbers and the percentage of the submitted applications from the
lists is decreasing and for the last two years more than 45% of the
submitted and more than 60% of the supported are out of the lists, without
being out of the disciplines' priorities of the program.
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| Applicants
Interest in the project’s competition is permanent and often growing
year after year: in Ukraine on the average only 40 % of all applications
are supported, in Bulgaria the figure is above 50 %. |
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| The studies show that while in Lithuania “the number of applying
publishing houses is stable”, in Ukraine and Bulgaria the project actively
seeks to diversify the publishers it cooperates with by supporting 13 %
(Ukraine) and 16 % (Bulgaria) previously unsupported publishers each year.
Further, the Bulgarian board takes a deliberate decision not to grant more
than 2 titles to one publisher per year. Notably, the project in Ukraine
makes systematic efforts to promote decentralization of the industry –
only 60% of supported publishers are from Kiev.
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| Unit grant levels
Average grant amounts as well as percentage of the grant from the total publishing costs decrease steadily over the years in all of the three countries: in Bulgaria and Ukraine the decrease is almost 50 % since 1996. No concrete figures from Lithuania can be quoted as data is highly controversial but the tendency of decreasing grants is present there as well.
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| Management
Project staff in the 3 countries evaluates the project as one of the
most successful projects of their foundations. The staff points that the
major obstacle for better project implementation is the inability of the
publishers to meet their contract obligations in terms of publication
dead-lines and proper reporting. |
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| In Bulgaria, both successful and unsuccessful applicants alike declare
that procedures of the competition are transparent and the criteria is
clear while focus-groups interviews in Lithuania claim lack of clear
criteria in decision-taking. |
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| Both grantees and board members evaluate highly the work of the
project staff in terms of efficiency, professionalism, correctness and
equivalent treatment (Bulgaria) and quick information delivery,
communication skills, efficiency and transparency (Ukraine). Ukraine is a
notable example of a high level of synergy between the publishing program
and other foundational programs, hardly visible from the studies in the
other two countries. |
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| Conclusions |
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| Whereas the cliché that “a book can change your life” is still
intuitively acknowledged, the extend to which certain books have (not)
changed somebody’s life or a society’s life is difficult to measure. The
studies summarized above attempt to overcome this very difficulty by
trying to grasp indicators on how Translation project alters the
contemporary life of the East European societies. This attempt is and can
be only partially successful when it comes to measuring such a complex
systems. |
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| The three studies demonstrate that book market, academia, public life
and the national language would have been much poorer had a project such
as TP had not been put into practice. The project contributed to
improvement of quality of education and in promoting critical thinking. In
the context of increasing commodification of culture, domination of
mass-media and decreasing social standing of any intellectual activities,
the project has endorsed reflexive thinking and has introduced key
concepts and ways for looking at social issues. |
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| The studies do not provide for evidences on how academic publishing
would look like had the project did not exist. Fluctuations in the
economies of countries in a never-ending transition severely affect
readers’ purchase power, publishing-related taxation, prices, etc. so the
project’s intention to contribute to publishers’ sustainability is often
neutralized or undermined by factors from the bigger economic picture. |
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| Results of the TP impact studies from Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ukraine
and the lessons learned in the project’s 7-years of history are a valuable
source of information for anybody interested in East European publishing,
book support or translations. Full-texts of the studies are available at
Next Page Foundation upon request. |
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Translation Project impact study was carried out by:
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