OPTIMALE: Optimising professional translator training in a multilingual Europe

The point of departure for this network project was that multilingual skills and high quality translation are key to creating and maintaining a multilingual and multicultural Europe, and that trained professional translators play a vital role in that process despite the recent advances in machine translation and multilingual information processing.

In 2009, the efforts of professionals and academics specialising in the field of translation studies to address the issue of advanced translator education and training resulted in internationally recognized professional quality standards and quality control criteria and benchmarks. This was followed by the official launch of the European Masters in Translation Network (December 2009), under the auspices of the Commission’s DGT, as an important move towards the recognition of a Europe-wide reference framework for the high level training of translators.

The aim of the Optimale network was to build on, and feed into, the work being undertaken by the European Masters in Translation (EMT), extending the geographical scope of the surveys and monitoring process, and strengthening ties with institutions and professional bodies outside the circle of universities currently in the EMT network.