Online, July 15th 2022
European Science Forum, Leiden, 13-16 July 2022
When we talk about multilingualism in research, we talk about human rights. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU places an obligation on the Union to respect linguistic diversity and prohibits discrimination on grounds of language.
European policies for Responsible Research and Innovation and Open Science underscore the importance of broad access to research knowledge and interaction between science and society. While globalization of research benefits from use of common language (e.g. English as lingua franca), multilingualism in science is vital for interaction with society and sharing knowledge beyond academia. According to the European University Association (EUA), “Multilingualism is particularly relevant for Europe, as its research is characterized by geographic, cultural and linguistic diversity”.
Panel discussion explores tensions between and ways to foster internationalization as well as multilingualism in “the practice of science, in scientific publications and in academic communications”, as stated in the Unesco Recommendation for Open Science (2021).
The panel will explore four cross-cutting topics:
● How lingua franca and multilingualism promote open science to bridge over existing barriers for knowledge transfer across disciplinary, geographical or societal borders in order to create resilient societies?
● How multilingualism as an essential part of academic culture must be incorporated in behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes and norms?
● What institutional structures need to be changed to foster and create the benefits from multilingual research in order to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion?
● How digital technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality foster multilingualism in creating translations?