FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR TRAINING IN CONFERENCE INTERPRETING

Expected Outcome:

To ensure the availability of a sufficient pool of highly qualified conference interpreters, the Directorate-General for Logistics and Interpretation for Conferences supports and contributes to the strengthening of interpreter training programmes through professional and financial assistance. These actions aim to foster the training of new generations of qualified conference interpreters who may subsequently be recruited by the EU institutions—particularly the European Parliament—either as officials or as accredited conference interpreting agents.

Objective:

As a provider of interpretation services in the European Parliament, and increasingly to other EU institutions and bodies, the mission of the Directorate-General for Logistics and Interpretation for Conferences is to ensure that a sufficient number of qualified conference interpreters are available to enable the EU institutions and bodies to function properly in a context of linguistic diversity including at regular events, all over the world, where wide language cover is required.

Under the principle of subsidiarity, Member States have the obligation to provide the necessary training. The European Parliament identifies the language combinations and skills that best match its needs, and assists universities in training high quality conference interpreters within these priority combinations.

The programme contributes to this mission by supporting the following actions in the field of interpretation:

• Integration of modern information and communication technologies in the training of conference interpreters.
• Cooperation among postgraduate courses from different European, candidate and third countries offering relevant language combinations.
• Regional cooperation among universities with complementary language regimes.
• The establishment of postgraduate centres of excellence and/or research.

Scope:

• Higher Education Institutions, Universities, university institutes, consortia and associations of universities or institutes, which offer or coordinate postgraduate courses specialising in conference interpreting.
• Associations, consortia and bodies, whose main mission is to support cooperation and disseminate best practices in the field of worldwide conference interpreter training.