In November, Prof. Tanju İnal, head of the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Bilkent University, was invited by the EU Parliament to attend a senior officials’ meeting in Brussels concerning the training of professional conference interpreters for the EU. Following this initial review by EU institutions of university performance in the field of interpreter training, a second meeting was held on December 4-5. Bilkent’s provost, Prof. Adnan Akay, and the coordinator of Bilkent’s Master’s in Conference Interpreting Programme, Asst. Prof. Şirin Okyayuz, attended the “Future Challenges” seminar for senior officials held by the European Commission Directorate General for Interpretation.
The seminar was organized to provide an opportunity to assess EU candidate and pre-candidate countries’ efforts in the area of training conference interpreters to EU standards, in anticipation of those countries’ future accession to the EU.
Bilkent University, along with Boğaziçi University, is one of two Turkish universities officially designated as Centers of Excellence and given the duty of training professional conference interpreters who meet EU standards for the Turkish government.
At the seminar, Turkey was represented by senior officials from YÖK, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of EU Affairs and the Turkish Representation to the EU Commission in Brussels, along with Bilkent and Boğaziçi University officials.
During the meeting, at which Bilkent University was stated to be a model center of excellence in interpreter training for the EU, Director General for Interpretation Marco Benedetti, Director of Interpretation Brian Fox, Enlargement Coordinator Penny Pouliou and Director Javier Hernandez Saseta all commended both Turkish universities on their work. In addition, Dr. Okyayuz gave a presentation describing the details of the “Bilkent Training Model.” Importantly, platforms for future cooperation with European universities desiring guidance and assistance from Bilkent were also formed at the meeting.