معرفی
Stevan Harnad is a prominent academic in cognitive science and open access advocacy, currently holding professorships at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and McGill University, and serving as Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Southampton. Born in Budapest, Hungary, he earned his Master’s from McGill University (1969) and PhD in Psychology from Princeton University (1992). He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Liège in 2013. Harnad is known for founding journals like Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1978–2002) and Psycoloquy, as well as the open-access archive CogPrints. He resigned from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2016 in protest against political pressures on academics.
His research focuses on cognitive science, categorization, communication, consciousness, and open access to scholarly work. A vegan, he actively advocates for animal welfare and rights. Notably, he co-authored an open letter criticizing the Hungarian government’s treatment of dissenting philosophers and has been a leading voice in promoting open access policies worldwide, emphasizing institutional mandates and metrics to maximize research impact.
Education:
- Undergraduate: McGill University, Psychology
- Graduate: Princeton University, Department of Psychology
- PhD: Princeton University, 1992
- Honorary Doctorate: University of Liège, 2013
Research Interests: Harnad’s work spans cognitive science, symbolic grounding, categorical perception, and open access advocacy. He explores how category learning shapes perception and communication, and how open access policies can democratize knowledge. His contributions to open access include coining the term “Green OA” and advocating for institutional self-archiving mandates.
Scientific Awards:
- 2013: Honorary Doctorate, University of Liège
Affiliations & Advocacy: As Editor-in-Chief of Animal Sentience, he bridges cognitive science and animal ethics. His activism includes opposing restrictive publishing models and supporting global open access initiatives like the MELIBEA Score metric. He has advised governments and institutions on optimizing OA policies, emphasizing metrics-driven approaches to evaluate research impact.
Labs/Teams: Central to his work is the CogPrints project, an open-access repository in cognitive sciences, and his role in shaping the Global Open Access List (GOAL).
