Signatura conveni

Linguamón-House of Languages and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) have set up the Linguamón-UOC Chair in Multilingualism. This purpose of this new Chair is to promote research and training in multilingualism as a means to develop society socially and economically. The new Chair is the result of the collaboration agreement signed on 21 December 2006 by UOC Rector, Imma Tubella, and Linguamón-House of Languages Director, Antoni Mir.

Objectives

The Chair has been set up to promote research, training, information gathering and documentation in multilingualism as a means to develop society socially and economically. To achieve this objective, the Chair aims to provide an interdisciplinary area for analysis and reflection on the role of languages and multilingualism in the globalisation process. It also aims to establish an international cooperation framework for academic training in this field.

The Chair in Multilingualism will focus on producing and transmitting knowledge to promote mechanisms for change and further multilingualism. In addition, it is hoped that the new Chair will lead to greater collaboration between prominent figures at the forefront of international research in universities and other institutions. 

Supervisory Board

The Supervisory Board is comprised of four UOC representatives and two members of the House of Languages. The Director of UOC’s Humanities Studies, Isidor Marí, is the new departmental Chair and Miquel Strubell, currently lecturer in Language and Cultural Studies, is the Chair’s Secretary.

Isidor Marí has served as lecturer at the Balearic Islands University’s Faculty of Humanities (Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres de les Balears). Between 1980 and 1996 he held positions in the Government of Catalonia, as Head of the Language Advisory Service (Servei d’Assessorament Lingüístic) (1980-1988) and Deputy Director of the Language Policy Board (Política Lingüística) until 1996, when he joined UOC.

Miquel Strubell was appointed Head of the Language Standardisation Service (Servei de Normalització Lingüística) for the Government of Catalonia in 1980. He served as Director of the Catalan Sociolinguistic Institute (Institut de Sociolingüística Catalana), Secretary of the Catalan Language Social Council (Consell Social de la Llengua Catalana) and Vice-President of the Consortium for Language Standardisation (Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística), until 1999 when he became lecturer at UOC. 

European Commission Recommendation 

The establishment of this Chair follows the new framework strategy for multilingualism proposed in the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions [COM (2005) 596 final]. This Communication calls for state, regional and local governments to take measures to promote multilingualism and, among other actions, set up studies in multilingualism through Chairs in linguistic diversity.