Despite the fact that universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly multilingual spaces in Europe, due to internationalisation policies and student intensified mobility, they obstinately sustain their monolingual tradition and continue to normalise the monolingual construction of knowledge whether it is in the national/official state language or in English – the latter being used progressively more as the single medium of instruction, especially in post-graduate programmes, but also in professional networking, research and publishing. These are issues which deeply concern ECSPM, and we are working toward identifying the challenges involved and proposing policies, practices and actions that may lead to multilingualism and a plurilingual habitus in academia.
Since 2021 and up to 2023 the annual ECSPM symposia (2021, 2022, 2023) concentrated exclusively on higher education: 2021 Multilingualism in Higher Education hosted by the University of Konstanz, 2022 Languages and the Construction of Knowledge in European Universities hosted by the University for Foreigners in Siena, and 2023 The Social Role of Higher Education hosted by the University of Strasbourg, and supported by the Council of Europe. The symposia of 2024 and 2025 also focus on multi-/plulingualism and linguistic justice, but on other levels of education as well.
In 2022, the ECSPM was invited to take part in a research project involving eight universities in Europe, Africa and S. America. The project was led by the University of Strasbourg. Functioning as the coordinating institution of Action 2 of the project entitled “Le multi-/plurilinguisme dynamique, terreau de l’excellence inclusive dans l’enseignement supérieur” (MUDExI), ECSPM carried out “A Case Study on Linguistic Mediation in Higher Education” (Étude de cas sur la médiation linguistique dans l’enseignement supérieur). The project started in January 2023 and was completed in June 2024.
– For a brief report of the Case Study on mediation, please click here.
– Dissemination of the Case Study results continues. For a presentation of the investigation’s conclusions and implications, please click here.
– For a preview of an article based on the Case Study on mediation, click here to see the manuscript.
In 2023, the ECSPM became a member of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) – a collective of organisations committed to reforming the methods and processes by which research, researchers, and research organisations are evaluated. Over 700 research organisations, funders, assessment authorities, professional societies, and their associations have agreed on a common direction and guiding principles to implement reform in the assessment of research, researchers, and research organisations. It also signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment published in July 2022 which provides an outline for reform and implementation. It also became a member of CoARA’s Working Group on Multilingualism and language biases in research assessment, which is concerned with language diversity and biases in assessment, and supports European institutions in fulfilling their duty to enhance, promote and uphold linguistic equity, diversity and non-discrimination. As a member of this Working Group, in April 2024 it organised a Seminar and Workshop on Multilingualism in Research and Assessment in Higher Education, hosted by the University of Konstanz, and carried out the ECSPM survey on language use in science communication & citizen science project.