The ADAPT Centre at DCU to lead The European Language Equality Consortium (ELE)

08 January 2021
The ADAPT Centre at DCU to lead The European Language Equality Consortium (ELE)

Dublin, 10 December 2020: The ADAPT Centre at DCU has recently been announced as the coordinator of the strategic project ELE. The wider consortium comprises five core partners (DCU, DFKI Berlin, Charles University Prague, ILSP Athens,  and the University of the Basque Country, Donostia), Language Technology Expertise from  9 networks, associations and initiatives, 9 companies and 30 research organisations.  Together this consortium of 53 partners from all over Europe will drive the strategic research,innovation and deployment agenda to achieve digital language equality in Europe by 2030.

ELE, in collaboration with its sister project the European Language Grid (ELG), will begin on the 1st January 2021 and aims to aid the development of a strategic research, innovation and deployment agenda to achieve digital language equality in Europe by 2030. ELE and ELG are aligned so that both will run for 18 months culminating with a joint event in June 2022, the META-FORUM 2022.

A number of consultation events, round tables and  stakeholder meetings are planned during the 18-month project, and will ensure close collaboration with ELG. Research partners will produce updates on the 32 META-NET White Papers, detailing the situation regarding the 77 languages of the project. Each network initiative will produce a report in which they collect, consolidate and present their own vision, and companies will produce various technical deep dives for the different technology areas.

Speaking about ELE, coordinator of the project Professor Andy Way says:

“ELE has the potential to influence the European Language Technology Landscape for the next 10 to 15 years by addressing the crucial topic of language equality, creating more public visibility for the LT community and strengthening the relationship of the ELG and the European AI Community. It will also help establish LT and language-centric AI in Horizon Europe and Digital Europe Programmes. It is perfectly aligned with the ADAPT MT strategy where language can no longer be a barrier to access to information in the 21st Century.”

The partner coordination team is comprised of Prof. Andy Way (Coordinator ELE, ADAPT Centre), Dr.  Georg Rehm (Co-Coordinator ELE, DFKI), Jan Hajic (Charles University), Stelios Piperidis (R.C. “Athena”, ILSP), Prof. German Rigau (University of the Basque Country).

Consortium Partners: LT Innovate (via Crosslang), EFNIL, ELEN, ECSPM, CLARIN, CLAIRE (via University of Leiden), NEM (via Eurescom), LIBER, Wikimedia, Tilde, ELDA, Expert System, Sail Labs, Kantan MT (via Xcelerator MT), Pangeanic, Semantic Web Company Vienna, Ontotext, Bulgaria,(via Sirma AI), SAP, University of Vienna, University of Antwerp, Institute for Bulgarian Language, University of Zagreb, University of Copenhagen, University of Tartu, University of Helsinki, CNRS Paris, Research Institute for Linguistics Hungary, Institute for Icelandic Studies, FBK Trento Italy,  University of Latvia, Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Luxembourg Institute of Technology, University of Malta, University of Utrecht, Language Council of Norway, Polish Academy of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Romanian Academy, University of Cyprus, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Jozef Stefan Institute Ljubljana, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, University of Zurich, University of Sheffield, University of Vigo, Bangor University, and University of Belgrade.

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