The Journal of Central European Agriculture (JCEA) was established in 1999 as an online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal designed to support regional scientific communication while also strengthening the role of national languages in agricultural science.

JCEA was founded through cooperation between universities in Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia, and it later expanded into a multinational publishing platform involving nine Central European countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Serbia. This structure reflects the journal’s dual mission. On one hand, it supports international scholarly exchange and visibility through English-language publishing, indexing, and online accessibility. On the other hand, it preserves linguistic diversity by allowing authors from member countries to publish in their native languages, provided that titles, abstracts, keywords, and extended abstracts, as well as table and figure content, are also available in English. This bilingual publishing policy aligns with the principles of the Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication, which promotes the equal value of national languages alongside English in scientific communication, as well as with the Diamond Open Access Standard guidelines on multilingualism that encourage inclusive and accessible multilingual publishing practices. In JCEA, multilingual standards are operationalised through mandatory English metadata and extended summaries for papers published in national languages, enabling both international discoverability and the preservation of professional agricultural terminology within local scientific communities. This model helps maintain agricultural terminology in national languages while ensuring that the research remains accessible to reviewers and readers beyond the local context.

A distinctive feature of JCEA is its editorial organisation. The journal is managed by national
editorial boards that participate in peer review and editorial decision-making, while coordination is maintained through an international editorial structure and rotating executive responsibility. This arrangement distributes responsibility among member institutions and broadens the reviewer base, which is particularly valuable for a multidisciplinary journal covering agriculture, plant science, animal science, environmental issues, and agricultural economics. The review process is designed to ensure scientific quality while accommodating manuscripts in different languages, including clearly defined bilingual publication requirements for manuscripts written in national languages. Over time, JCEA has developed beyond its original regional focus. Although the journal continues to publish a large share of papers from member countries, it increasingly attracts authors from non-member regions, including Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. This broader geographic reach indicates that the journal’s multilingual and open-access model has relevance beyond Central Europe. The journal’s inclusion in major bibliographic databases such as Web of Science Core Collection (ESCI), Scopus, CAB Abstracts, Agricola, DOAJ, and EBSCO further increases the visibility and dissemination of published research.

The JCEA case illustrates how a scholarly journal can combine regional cooperation, multilingual publishing, and digital accessibility into a sustainable editorial model. Its experience shows that language diversity need not conflict with international scientific communication. Instead, when supported by clear editorial rules, bilingual publication standards, and strong institutional collaboration, multilingual publishing can enhance both scientific exchange and cultural continuity. In this sense, JCEA represents not only a publication outlet but also a long-term infrastructure for knowledge transfer, professional development, and the preservation of agricultural terminology in Central Europe.