Julia travelled from Graz (Austria) to Germersheim (Germany)

The CIUTI Tra­vel Scheme enabled me to conduct a two-week research stay at the Fach­be­reich Translations‑, Sprach- und Kul­tur­wis­sen­schaft (FTSK) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mainz (Ger­mer­sheim) in Ger­ma­ny. Over the course of my stay, I met up with various resear­chers and pro­fes­sors spe­cia­li­zed in trans­la­tion or lite­ra­ry his­to­ry as well as in the field of gen­der stu­dies. These exchanges did not only immen­se­ly bene­fit my cur­rent dis­ser­ta­tion pro­ject, but also paved the way for future col­la­bo­ra­tions. I was also able to access the university’s libra­ry, which owns a lot of rele­vant books that I had only been able to retrieve via inter­li­bra­ry loan befo­re­hand. Final­ly, I took Ger­mer­sheim as the star­ting point for addi­tio­nal visits to sur­roun­ding archives and research centres, such as the Deutsche Stif­tung Frauen- und Ges­chlech­ter­for­schung in Hei­del­berg or the Archiv der deut­schen Frauen­be­we­gung in Kas­sel. I am real­ly gra­te­ful to have had this oppor­tu­ni­ty and would defi­ni­te­ly recom­mend applying for the CIUTI Tra­vel Scheme, given the com­pa­ra­ti­ve­ly straight­for­ward appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dure and the amount of money gran­ted for the research stay.

Michał travelled from Warsaw (Poland) to Antwerp (Belgium)

My research stay at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ant­werp was an incre­di­bly enri­ching and ful­filling expe­rience. From the moment I arri­ved until the day of my depar­ture, eve­ry moment was filled with valuable encoun­ters, lear­ning oppor­tu­ni­ties, and ins­pi­ring dis­cus­sions.

During my time in Ant­werp, I had the pri­vi­lege of mee­ting estee­med experts in the field of intra- and inter­lin­gual respea­king. These inter­ac­tions pro­vi­ded me with inva­luable insights into the didac­tics of respea­king and allo­wed me to exchange expe­riences and ideas with pro­fes­sio­nals at the fore­front of this field. Moreo­ver, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive metho­do­lo­gi­cal gui­dance from Dr. Jan­kows­ka and her col­leagues, which assis­ted me in refi­ning my research metho­do­lo­gy. Their exper­tise and advice hel­ped me navi­gate the selec­tion of appro­priate methods and soft­ware for the qua­li­ta­tive ana­ly­sis of the in-depth inter­views conduc­ted as part of my doc­to­ral research. Addi­tio­nal­ly, my time in Ant­werp allo­wed me to col­lect vital research data, inclu­ding com­pre­hen­sive notes from inter­views, obser­va­tions of respea­kers” work during the Media4All confe­rence, and insights gathe­red from visits to the DPG Media headquarters.

Beyond the aca­de­mic achie­ve­ments, my stay also fos­te­red mea­ning­ful connec­tions with young acces­si­bi­li­ty resear­chers from various coun­tries. Toge­ther, we dis­cus­sed future col­la­bo­ra­tion pos­si­bi­li­ties, inclu­ding poten­tial part­ner­ships within the Open Research Net­work consti­tu­ted at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Antwerp.

I am exci­ted to conti­nue my col­la­bo­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ant­werp through a co-tutelle PhD pro­gram and look for­ward to future publi­ca­tions dis­cus­sing the out­comes of my research experiment.

I am tru­ly gra­te­ful for this incre­dible oppor­tu­ni­ty and the unwa­ve­ring sup­port I recei­ved throu­ghout my research stay in Ant­werp, also from CIU­TI’s part. This expe­rience has left an inde­lible mark on my aca­de­mic and pro­fes­sio­nal jour­ney, and I am confi­dent that the know­ledge and connec­tions gai­ned will shape my future endea­vors in the field of acces­si­bi­li­ty and respeaking.

Karolína travelled from Prague (Czech Republic) to Madrid (Spain)

After the ini­tial in-per­son consul­ta­tion with the super­vi­sor, when I explai­ned my aims and needs : the col­lec­tion and veri­fi­ca­tion of biblio­gra­phic data for the data­base of lite­ra­ry trans­la­tion of Czech lite­ra­ture into Spa­nish. I recei­ved many valuable metho­do­lo­gi­cal and prac­ti­cal recom­men­da­tions and contacts, the major part of the works was car­ried out at the Spa­nish Natio­nal Libra­ry (Biblio­te­ca Nacio­nal de España – BNE) buil­ding in Madrid. During two weeks of 6–8 hours of day work I bor­ro­wed and phy­si­cal­ly consul­ted hun­dreds of books – lite­ra­ry trans­la­tions of our data­base cata­log which are avai­lable at the libra­ry resources, com­pi­led the missing/digitally not avai­lable biblio­gra­phic infor­ma­tion and che­cked the mis­lea­ding or ques­tio­nable data. I also made pho­to­co­pies of the covers and selec­ted per­itexts of the books to have the proof of the source of infor­ma­tion. Accor­ding to this metho­do­lo­gy I mana­ged to gather a big amount of infor­ma­tion nee­ded to fina­lize our pro­ject, but the phy­si­cal consul­ta­tion of the books (more spe­ci­fi­cal­ly foun­ded per­itexts) has, moreo­ver, pro­vi­ded us with the infor­ma­tion about other exis­ting trans­la­tions of our focus I had not found yet. The final results (num­ber of suc­cess­ful­ly consul­ted books and amount of new trans­la­tions foun­ded) have sur­pas­sed the expec­ta­tions and our aims. For that rea­son I eva­luate the CIUTI stay as high­ly bene­fi­cial for our PhD pro­ject without which I could not veri­fy the missing/unclear/misleading/incomplete data pre­sen­ted by digi­tal sources nei­ther get infor­med about other trans­la­tions which were not ori­gi­nal­ly part of our cor­po­ra, but after the veri­fi­ca­tion pro­cess were added to it. I would cor­dial­ly thank, first, to CIUTI for pro­vi­ding this oppor­tu­ni­ty awar­ding me the finan­cial sup­port, and second, to prof. Dr. Nadia Rodrí­guez Orte­ga for her pro­fes­sio­nal and friend­ly sup­port during my stay in Madrid.

Monika travelled from Vienna (Austria) to Ghent (Belgium)

As a doc­to­ral assis­tant at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na, I got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tra­vel to Ghent Uni­ver­si­ty thanks to the CIUTI PhD Tra­vel Scheme. Within a per­iod of two weeks, I was able to work on my PhD pro­ject with Prof. Bart Defrancq whom I can­not thank enough for his excellent sup­port. Espe­cial­ly his exper­tise in infe­ren­tial sta­tis­tics tur­ned out to be more than valuable to me. Apart from a lot of new insights in terms of content, I was lucky to get to know fel­low PhD can­di­dates and other col­leagues wor­king at the Depart­ment of Trans­la­tion, Inter­pre­ting and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion of Ghent Uni­ver­si­ty. A spe­cial high­light was the quiz night on Fle­mish dia­lects orga­ni­sed by the depart­ment where we lear­ned a lot about the lin­guis­tic varie­ty of Dutch – inclu­ding the kind of expres­sion tools you will defi­ni­te­ly not be taught in lan­guage classes. Last but not least, the city of Ghent with its beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture cer­tain­ly was the cher­ry on top of my stay in Bel­gium. All in all, the time at Ghent Uni­ver­si­ty was an abso­lu­te­ly wor­thw­hile expe­rience that I can who­le­hear­ted­ly recom­mend to eve­ry­bo­dy inter­es­ted in get­ting an addi­tio­nal pers­pec­tive on their PhD pro­ject. For this, and for crea­ting new net­works with col­leagues from abroad, the CIUTI PhD Tra­vel Scheme is a per­fect occasion. 

Alicia travelled from Alicante (Spain) to Winterthur : (Switzerland) Machine translation for crisis communication

This is Ali­cia, an in-house trans­la­tor and a PhD can­di­date in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ali­cante (Spain). I applied for the CIUTI Tra­vel Scheme in order to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­rience how research groups work in other coun­tries. My research inter­ests include trans­la­tion tech­no­lo­gies, machine trans­la­tion, and spe­cia­li­zed lan­guages. Thanks to CIUTI, I had the chance to par­ti­ci­pate in the research pro­ject “Machine trans­la­tion for cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion” in the Zurich Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sciences (IUED). This pro­ject focuses on how machine trans­la­tion tools can assist public ser­vice pro­fes­sio­nals in com­mu­ni­ca­ting with refu­gees and over­co­ming lan­guage bar­riers. During my stay, I have been able to col­la­bo­rate with a group and to gain insights into various roles and res­pon­si­bi­li­ties within a research pro­ject. My time in Zurich has signi­fi­cant­ly contri­bu­ted to my PhD pro­gress through the advan­ce­ments in machine trans­la­tion tools. Addi­tio­nal­ly, this stay not only has been fruit­ful for my PhD, but it also was per­so­nal­ly enri­ching. Being able to explore Swit­zer­land, its land­scapes and culture was an unfor­get­table adventure !

Manuel travelled from Graz (Austria) to Forlì (Italy)

Thanks to CIUTI, I had the pos­si­bi­li­ty to spend two weeks at the Depart­ment of Inter­pre­ta­tion and Trans­la­tion of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bolo­gna in Forlì.

Ori­gi­nal­ly, I plan­ned to conduct a smal­ler stu­dy on the trans­la­tion and post-edi­ting of gen­der-fair lan­guage from English into Ita­lian. This expe­riment is ins­pi­red by Trans­la­tion Pro­cess Research and has the objec­tive to inves­ti­gate cog­ni­tive pro­cesses in the appli­ca­tion of gen­der-fair lan­guage beyond the binary.

While I found five par­ti­ci­pants and gathe­red first data in Ita­ly, I unfor­tu­na­te­ly did not manage to find a sixth per­son to take part in my stu­dy. This would have been impor­tant in order to have two groups, i.e., trans­la­tors and post-edi­tors, of equal num­ber. Never­the­less, I am still in contact with Pro­fes­sor Peder­zo­li and we are trying to recruit one more participant.

Even though I do not have enough data to include in my the­sis, the stay in Forlì was essen­tial because I had the pos­si­bi­li­ty to dis­cuss my research endea­vor with Prof. Peder­zo­li, who is an expert in gen­der-fair trans­la­tion, and also with inter­na­tio­nal­ly renow­ned resear­chers such as Sil­via Ber­nar­di­ni and Ricar­do Munoz Mar­tin. Their use­ful insights hel­ped me improve the theo­re­ti­cal back­ground of my the­sis as well as my line of argu­men­ta­tion as to why my work is rele­vant for Trans­la­tion Studies.

In addi­tion, I could get in touch with other resear­chers and stu­dents who are inter­es­ted or wor­king on simi­lar topics. I am dee­ply convin­ced that such a net­work is extre­me­ly impor­tant to improve the qua­li­ty of our research which repre­sents a nice broa­de­ning of queer trans­la­tion studies.