Press release

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The University of Liège, the City of Liège authorities and the University of Mons are linking up to jointly offer a Masters in Interpretation.

The University of Liège, the City of Liège and the University of Mons have today announced the joint organisation of a Masters in Interpretation, from the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic year. This agreement takes the form of the awarding of joint degrees, which means that the students will be the graduates or the three teaching institutions at the end of their Masters: the ULg, the City of Liège High School and UMONS.

This joint degree with UMONS will enable Liège students to benefit from the international recognition, the expertise and the quality of the teaching offered by the International School of Interpreters at the University of Mons’ Faculty of Translation and Interpretation.

In parallel with this Masters in interpretation, the University of Liège and the City of Liège will offer a Masters in Translation.

Photo: © Médiathèque at the European Commission

As a reminder, in 2008, the ULg and the City of Liège High School jointly launched Bachelors studies (1^st cycle) in Translation and Interpretation. It was the first agreement of its kind in the Wallonia-Brussels French Speaking Community between a University and a High School. It allowed people to follow for the first time at Liège a programme in Translation and Interpretation studies, a  programme which experienced rapid success in terms of enrolment (over 300 students are currently enrolled in the 1^st cycle).

From the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic year the first Bachelors students will have to choose between the Masters in Translation and the Masters in Interpretation.

The Masters in Translation in four languages (English, German, Dutch and Spanish) aims at the understanding of written work. It will be built up in continuity with the awarding of joint degrees by the City of Liège (HEC) and the ULg. It will target a high level of skills in translation, editing and linguistics, and will focus on cultural, political and legal fields as much as on economic, scientific and technological areas.

The Masters in Interpretation, also in four languages, aims at training high level language professionals capable of translating simultaneously or consecutively the oral speeches of specialists. This demanding profession requires specific personal abilities: a very in-depth knowledge of your mother tongue and foreign languages, but also extended knowledge of sometimes very complex political, diplomatic, socio-economic, legal, technological and scientific contexts. It also demands a strong general knowledge, great reactivity, an ability to cope with stress and a personality which is open to international experiences.

For this Masters in Interpretation the ULg and the City of Liège High School wanted to link up with the highly reputed International School of Interpreters at the University of Mons’ Faculty of Translation and Interpretation. The programme targets the same foreign languages (English, German, Dutch and Spanish), and students will have to perfectly master two of them.

In practical terms students will take the first Masters year at Liège, where they will very quickly placed in concrete interpreting situations within interpretation booths, in order to make them aware from the very first weeks of the specific qualities required by the interpreting profession, with the possibility, should it be necessary, of turning to the Masters in Translation. The programme of the first Masters year organised at Liège is identical, with a few exceptions, to that offered at Liège.

The second Masters year will be followed at the University of Mons, with the exception of the end of study project and the work experience programme, which will be supervised by the ULg in the first case and by the HEL in the second.

At the end of the Masters the students will hold joint degrees awarded by the ULg-HEL-UMONS, a particular plus point which will enable them to apply in the best possible conditions for membership of the AIIC, the sole accredited international organisation for conference interpreters, with 3000 members worldwide.

Photo: © Médiathèque at the European Commission

‘Thanks to awarding degrees jointly with the UMONS International School of Interpreters, we will enable our students who begin Interpretation studies at Liège to gain a high value degree, opening up real professional perspectives, in particular at the international level,’ declared Pr Albert Corhay, the Ulg’s First Vice-Rector.  He added: ‘The ULg and the City of Liège will equip future students in the Masters in Translation and Interpretation with significant means, as much in terms of equipment, with investment in the order of 250,000 Euros for a room fitted with a dozen modern translation booths, as in terms of teaching support. In the two coming years no less than ten people (lecturers and assistants) will be recruited for the Masters in Translation, whilst several high level interpretation professionals will be entrusted with the practical teaching for the Masters in Interpretation.’

‘The City of Liège will thus be offering a complete curriculum in Translation and Interpretation which will soon number 500 students (Bachelors and Masters)’ points out  Pierre Stassart, the City of Liège’s deputy for public education. ‘It will benefit from new high level teaching support, as Albert Corhay, the First Vice-Rector, has mentioned, which will be added to the 14 people already recruited for the Bachelors in translation and interpretation. This department, which attracts particularly motivated students, has one of the highest success rates of our institutions and contributes to strengthening the links between Walloon public universities,’ rejoices Pierre Stassart. ‘It will be fully inscribed in the Creative Wallonia process promoted by the Walloon government. The City of Liège once again demonstrates that nothing in the international sphere is beyond it, as is already shown for its application to organize Expo 2017.’

Pr Alain Piette, Doyen at the University of Mons’ Faculty of Translation and Interpretation, also points out another of the important issues of this joint degree agreement: ‘Our three institutions will unite their strengths to train high level interpreters in such a way to respond as effectively as possible to the demand of international institutions and confront the general shortage of interpreters across the entire world.’

For information on Translation and Interpretation studies

At the ULg-HEL :
ULg – Informations sur les études, 04 366 56 74, info.etudes@ulg.ac.be 

Ate the UMONS :
Faculté de Traduction et d’Interprétation, Ecole d’Interprètes Internationaux, 065 37 36 01, info.fti@umons.ac.be