Action Plan of the WPA Secretary for Publications
Authors: Michel Botbol
Journal: World Psychiatry (2018)

What makes the exceptional value of the WPA is the unique opportunity it offers to accommodate the diversity of psychiatry, not only in its geographical and cultural aspects, but also in its theoretical and practical dimensions. This diversity makes, indeed, the richness of psychiatry as long as it is integrated under a common umbrella like the one provided by the WPA. This integrative mission is explicitly highlighted in the WPA Action Plan 2017-20201. Within this global framework, publications are situated between science (or knowledge) and education (or training), in reference to evidence and value based good practices2. It is, therefore, mainly a mediating stage between the input of knowledge and the output of education. The main aim of publications is then to be integrated in this general process to serve WPA goals for the benefit of psychiatry, mental health and their users or patients. In this general perspective, publications have, however, several specific tasks. Among them, the dissemination of knowledge to improve psychiatric science and practice and the promotion of the visibility, the funding and the academic recognition of Psychiatry, of WPA and of WPA components, in particular Member Societies and the psychiatrists they associate. For that purpose, we consider crucial to take into account the lack of resources of low- and middle-income countries (LAMIC) and the glass-ceiling effect professionals often face in less scientifically favored contexts, when they want to get published. Linguistic, cultural and educational reasons account for many of these difficulties, but they are far from being the only or the most important obstacles met by these colleagues. Even more crucial is often the lack of theoretical and practical incentives in the less scientifically informed and methodologically trained contexts. To address this issue, it is crucial to improve the quality of psychiatry worldwide. To reach this objective, we will have to keep in mind that the WPA is not a scientific organization as any other: beside knowledge dissemination and evidence-based training, the WPA should aim at increasing its prestige and its scientific recognition, so that it can use them to reduce the above contextual limitations and promote the production emerging from less favored zones of the world. In this action, the stake of our work in the WPA will be to encompass, on one hand, the state of the art in the various domains involved in psychiatry, taking into account the huge differences of scientific levels according to each of these domains, and, on the other hand, the reality of psychiatric practices in the various contexts in which psychiatry and psychiatrists are struggling to help as efficiently as possible real patients and carers they meet in their “natural” settings. Multiple actions can be proposed in the publication domain to reach these, potentially contradictory, overall goals. Building on the extraordinary success of the WPA official scientific journal, World Psychiatry (it recently reached the impressive impact factor of 30, under the direction of M. Maj, its Editor), our publication project will try to renew WPA efforts to increase the number, the scientific quality and the dissemination of the products of psychiatric knowledge and experience. For that purpose, one of our proposals will be to commission and contribute to produce WPA or WPA sponsored books on relevant topics, with recognized publishers and editors, increasing the visibility of these productions through the WPA website and WPA meetings. As an international organization, we will also do our best to support the translations of World Psychiatry in various languages (Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese). The same efforts will be made to produce or translate anthologies of important classical papers from various psychiatric traditions, resuming a successful book series that has been interrupted in the past few years. In line with the focus of the previous committee for scientific publications, under the leadership of M. Riba3-5, we will also develop, as much as possible, adequate assistance to Member Societies to get their national or regional journals properly indexed. In that perspective, we will look for adequate ways to provide psychiatrists worldwide with assistance and support to increase their ability to publish scientific papers in English, such as bilingual online journals (French-English, Spanish-English, Portuguese-English), methodological and writing assistance, online courses on “how to publish in indexed journals”. Beside their scientific qualities, these productions will aim to cover, from science to practice, topics likely to benefit from multifocal and comprehensive approaches, in close interaction with allied disciplines. Here again, the past productions of WPA components and the feedback from the Member Societies will guide and inspire us for our future works. In all these projects, WPA diversity will be seen as a strength. In line with the Action Plan, the tasks related to publications will look for the benefit they can get from this diversity, articulating our publication projects with those assigned to the other members of the Executive Committee, particularly the Secretaries for Education and for Scientific Sections, in connection with the new Standing Committee for Science.