EUROPEAN COMMISSION

DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR TRANSLATION

Directorate S - Translation strategy and Multilingualism

S.3 - Multilingualism and translation studies

Brussels, 20 September 2012

Dgt.s.3(2012)1081408

EUROPEAN MASTER’S IN TRANSLATION (EMT) STRATEGY

1. EMT vision and values

The EMT is a quality label for translator training courses at master's level which can be given
to higher education programmes that meet commonly accepted quality standards for translator
training. The EMT promotes quality translator training and helps translators to keep up with
requirements of knowledge society.

The EMT is a result of a joint interest of European higher education institutions educating
translators at MA level and DGT as the largest single public employer of translators in
Europe. It came into existence because the increasing demand for multilingual language
services at all levels requires quality translation beyond the skills perceived as necessary by
the general public. It is also part of a process that should, with time and effort, upgrade the
discourse on translation and translators, and turn professional translation into a recognised
liberal profession.

Building on the previous strategies, the desired destination for the EMT is a network of
excellence of European translation programmes, which underpins a better recognition for
translation professions and enhances the quality of global multilingual communication.

The EMT's stakeholders encompass all those that are concerned by multilingual
communication: from those who buy translation services to those that produce translations,
control translation quality, disseminate translation products or use them for various purposes.
The academic stakeholders of the EMT are universities, academic trainers in translation,
students and alumni, trainers of trainers and lifelong learners. Beyond the academia, the
primary EMT stakeholders are translation professionals and language industry in general.

The EMT can operate through the working groups and/or projects (for example AGORA,
OPTIMALE, QUALETRA and TransCert) that may be developed by the Network
programmes with the help of the available funding sources.

2. Objectives

The following objectives guide the EMT:

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(1) Foster and encourage dynamic learning and teaching of advanced translation skills
with a view to preparing students for continuous learning and a life-long career as
translators.
(2) Acknowledge, recognise, and respond to changes in translation training imposed by
technological and market developments.
(3) Assess quality of translation training programmes.
(4) Collaborate with professional associations, institutions, and translation companies so
as to maintain a thorough understanding of the many facets of the translation
professions.
(5) Encourage collaborative support between EMT members, including the possibility for
full student mobility under a defined set of rules, so that students have the opportunity
to study translation at more than one university and their credits are recognised by the
other EMT universities.
(6) Monitor discussions on pedagogical innovation, educational research, and curricular
development and discuss their applicability across EMT programmes.

3. Strategic areas

The following areas have been defined as having a strategic importance for the EMT:

3.1. Innovation
• Integrate new concepts into teaching, and carry out research-led training in: transcreation,
intercultural project management, creative writing, journalism, statistical, rule-based and
hybrid machine translation, wikification, editing, multimedia texts, authoring of texts;
• Study the convergence between journalism, technical writing, multilingual documentation
and translation studies, web science, internet studies, adaptation studies, transfer studies
and intercultural studies;
• Explore blended learning;
• Reflect on innovative marking and assessment methods;
• Reflect on the role of native speakers in revising and editing non-native speakers, and on
the role of foreign speakers of a given language.

3.2. Employability

• Reflect on employability as a way to building the prestige of the profession and in terms of
lifelong learning;
• Reflect on the translator profile;
• Design adequate and regular employer surveys;
• Initiate contacts with employers and invite professionals to teach at translation
programmes and assess students' work;
• Encourage internships and conclude training agreements with the industry;
• Monitor evolution of skills for translators.

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 3.3. EMT criteria for assessment and selection of programmes
• Reflect upon the re-application process for current EMT members or observers and the
new applicant programmes;
• Consider adequate measures to ensure that the differences between how the EMT
programme performs, how it describes its performance and what it should actually focus
on are accounted for.

3.4. EMT association

• Ensure long-term sustainability for the EMT and its long-lasting capacity by investigating
the scenario of creating an EMT association;
• Draft a charter of the new organisation: reflect on the legal status and financial model, the
status of the members and functioning of the network in this new organisational context;
• Reflect on the role of Directorate-General for Translation and the EMT selection
modalities in the new organisational context.

3.5. Training the trainers

• Elaborate the framework profile of competences for translator trainers;
• Prepare a resource bank with educational materials for translator trainers;
• Develop a lifelong learning process for translator trainers;
• Elaborate a guide on setting up a new professional translation programme, and in
particular, address the question of passage from philology to translation.

4. DGT-EMT strategic partnership

The Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission recognises the
strategic importance of the EMT for ensuring excellence in translator training in Europe on
the basis of the EMT competence model and its employability criteria. Simultaneously, it
notes the positive impact the EMT has created for university translation programmes in
Europe, as well as the impact for the community of translation and language stakeholders
outside universities.
DGT will act as an EMT partner, seeking synergies between the activities of the network and
the work of the DGT, with regards to cooperation on translation studies or research projects,
terminology sharing, Visiting Translator Scheme, organisation of traineeships for EMT
academics and students as well as participation of EMT academic trainers in the training
activities for DGT's translators.
DGT is committed to remaining an EMT's strategic partner in the long-term.

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