According to Eurobarometer, 83% of Europeans value knowing other languages yet 44% cannot hold a conversation in another language. With globalisation and increasing migration, multilingualism is critical to intercultural understanding and cohesion in society, job prospects for individuals and competitiveness in Europe.

What Is Language Rich Europe?

Through fresh research, a pioneering new tool – the Language Rich Europe Index – and a network of partners, this project seeks to capture the attention of leaders in government, business and society across Europe to:

• Illustrate the current situation, highlighting good policy / practice to enable informed policy choices
• Inspire a new language focus among decision makers by
• demonstrating the importance of languages in stable and
• prosperous societies
• Motivate more learners / users of many languages

How Will This Be Achieved?

New research: The Language Rich Europe Index will create a baseline for language education and multilingual services across countries and industries with clear, comparable and trackable information.

The Index will cover language policies and practices in:

• Pre-primary and primary education
• Secondary education
• Languages in adult education
• Public services and spaces
• Business
• Media
• National databases on language diversity

Essays: Highlighting specific national contexts will complement the data collected in each country

Analysis: Using the Index, LRE will determine:

• Best practices: Which recommendations are being followed and work well? Which do not and why?
• Correlations between good practice in one area and success in another area

Language types to be included are:

• National languages
• Foreign languages
• Regional languages
• Immigrant languages

How Will This Information Be Used?

With our expert partners we will build networks of professionals from all sectors covered by the Index, both at a national and international level.

The research and language profiles of each country will be launched and promoted through:

• Publications and an interactive website in at least 22 languages
• Articles and interviews in the media
• Student network of over 2 million EUNIC language learners
• New professional network of over 1200 decision makers across sectors
• 22 major national launch events (in 20 countries, 2 regions)
• At least 66 workshops on improving policies and practices across Europe
• 22 action plans (national/regional/local level)
• Final paper summarising recommendations
• The impact of the project can be tracked in subsequent editions

We have created an online forum via our Language Rich blog. We invite you to join in the discussion and voice your views on the role of languages or share your personal experience.

Our partners in Belgium are the Migration Policy Group, EUNIC Brussels and the Danish Cultural Insitute.