The University of Westminster is a partner university in the Erasmus+ project EFFORT (“European Framework for Translation"), which is part of the ongoing Key Action KA2 of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships (Higher Education) programme.
Dr Elsa Huertas Barros and Juliet Vine, Senior Lecturers in Translation Studies at the School of Humanities, are involved in developing this European reference framework describing key competences in written translation. Unlike in languages, there is no Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) establishing levels of performance in translation education. A common reference framework for translation will provide homogenised descriptor levels relevant to both academic and professional settings in Europe and beyond.
The EFFORT project aims to refine translation levels A (initial) and B (intermediate) which have been already piloted in a previous project in which the UoW also played a key role. The project also aims to describe translator's areas of specialisation (legal, economic and financial, technical, scientific, and literary) and make a first proposal of descriptors for translation level C (specialist translator).
The EFFORT project is coordinated by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and involves nine further European partners: University of Westminster (UK), Universidad de Granada (Spain), Uniwersytet Wroclawski (Poland), Universitatea Alexandru Ioan Cuza Din Iasi (Romania), Université de Genève (Switzerland), Univerza V Ljubljani (Slovenia), Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), Ita-Suomen Yliopisto (Finland) and Universiteit Utrecht (The Netherlands). Twenty-eight translation training institutions and four professional bodies are also involved in the project, including: the International Federation of Translators (FIT Europe), the European Language Industry Association (ELIA), the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), and the Instituto Cervantes.
Further information is available at