THE PROJECT

TIMELY AND ACCURATE COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT, BUT WHAT IF THE ONLY INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO YOU IS IN A LANGUAGE YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND?

• You are on holidays in a country, there is an earthquake and a nuclear accident. For your well-being, should you stay in your hotel? Should you leave the country as quickly as possible or are the risks minimal? You turn on the television. All information is in a language you cannot understand. You wish it was translated…
• There are rumours of a virus outbreak in a neighbouring country. You need to know what you should do to prepare and protect yourself and your family from being exposed. The government has issued information and the Community Health Worker arrives to distribute these leaflets. You understand when she explains in your language, but when she’s gone you want to check again. The leaflet is in one of the official languages of your country, but you are not so competent in it and so you do not quite understand the instructions. You wish it was translated…

These are just two of many possible scenarios in which translation could help people prepare themselves for a possible crisis or make informed decisions when already affected by a crisis.

INTERACT is an H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange Network aimed at researching translation in crisis scenarios. It brings together a unique combination of actors from social science, humanities, technology developers and humanitarian responders to collaborate and to educate each other.

As illustrated in our logo, the INTERACT project will focus primarily on 4 main topics around crisis translation with ethics as a central pillar: Policies, Training, Simplification and Machine Translation.

For further information, click on the Consortium and Work Packages tabs above.

The EU-funded INTERACT project formally ended in March 2020, but this website will be kept live and will be updated with relevant news and publications.