Begoña Arrate, from UZEI, presented a paper on the role of terminology in voice interactions between machines and operators in industrial production plants.

The headquarters of the Institut d ‘Estudis Catalans in Barcelona hosted, on 16 and 17 November, the Terminology Summit 2023 of the European Association for Terminology (EAFT), which was jointly organised by the EAFT and Termcat. Around a hundred specialists in terminology from all over Europe met to share experiences and reflections on innovation and sustainability in the field of terminology.

The previous EAFT Summit was held in 2021 in a pandemic context under the title Terminology in challenging circumstances, so this time the EAFT Board decided to focus on a more positive topic: Terminology – Innovation and Sustainability.

The first day of this year’s summit focused on innovation, a topic of great interest nowadays, both in general and in the field of terminology, due to the changes brought about in the way we work with the advent of new technologies based on artificial intelligence. Various presentations by specialists in the field of terminology addressed the consequences of these changes and the challenges and opportunities that these innovations bring with them. On this first day of the summit, several interesting and innovative projects in the field of the semantic web and ontologies were also presented. The future of terminology databases was also discussed.

In this context, the terminologist Begoña Arrate from UZEI presented, in collaboration with the Etxepare Basque Institute, an analysis of the role of terminology in voice interactions between machines and industrial production operators based on the projects in which Vicomtech and UZEI are participating jointly.

The second day of the summit, which focused on sustainability, began with a round table discussion featuring five leading women in the field of terminology in Europe: Maja Bratanić, Maria Teresa Cabré, Susanne Lervad, Fidelma Ní Ghallchobhair and Delyth Prys. This round table provided a unique opportunity to delve into the experience of these leading figures in the field of terminology and their legacy, as well as to reflect on how their knowledge can be applied to meet the challenges of the future.

The main themes of the presentations at the day focused on sustainability were equity, diversity, inclusion, gender, domain loss and the Nordic coherence strategy.

The EAFT also presented the International Terminology Awards at this summit, one of them to M. Araceli Losey León in the category “International Award for Distinguished Achievement in Terminology (MA level)” and the other to Jorge M. Porras in the category “International Award for Outstanding Achievement in Terminology Research and Development (PhD level)”.

As for the next summit, it will be held in 2025, but the venue and theme have not yet been decided. For those interested, we recommend following the EAFT website and its profile at the social network X (@_eaft).