Multilingualism Lab kicks off for the second phase of FORTHEM Alliance

FORTHEM Multilingualism in School and Higher Education Lab has systematically prepared for the full rollout phase since March 2022 when its second progress meeting was held in Jyväskylä. The Lab’s three-day sustainability meeting in València in May 2022 witnessed a rich diversity of ideas that were fine-tuned and expanded during regular meetings in June, September, October and November 2022 and January 2023. The task of the kick-off meeting in February was to provide an overview of the activity proposals presented so far and initiate focused discussion on the Lab’s action plan for the upcoming years.

In their introduction, Labs and Co-creation Mission Board Manager Päivikki Lahtinen and Work Package Manager Åshild Kristensen Foss from the University of Agder presented the renewed strategy of FORTHEM Labs, which emphasizes co-creation for societal change. Labs are encouraged and trained to work together with university-external stakeholders and students to initiate change in society and in the knowledge creation ecology of FORTHEM universities. One of the approaches to such institutional change is Labs’ contribution to other FORTHEM Missions. The strategy in itself is not new, since Labs, including Multilingualism Lab, have worked with university-external experts (e.g., in the Citizen Science project), involved students in output development (e.g., in courses and publications) as well as contributed to other FORTHEM Missions (e.g., through organizing summer schools and providing Digital Academy courses) already in the pilot period. What is new is a more systematic approach to co-creation, which is encapsulated in three expectations towards Labs. During the full rollout period, that is, by October 2026, Labs are expected to deliver

• one ambitious co-creation project initiated by a university-external stakeholder;
•  at least one student-driven smaller project each year;
• significant contribution of co-designed content to at least one of the other FORTHEM missions.

The participants of the Multilingualism Lab are full of ideas for each category, as it can be seen in the 14 activity proposals-so-far put forward in the kick-off discussions facilitated by Tamás Péter Szabó. It was not difficult to find connections to the four other FORTHEM Missions, since Labs boost activities all around the alliance in the fields of research, education, staff training and mobility alike.

Work on certain Lab outputs developed in the pilot period will continue in the full rollout phase as well: the Citizen Science Project on Multilingualism in Education has FIT FORTHEM funding till the end of this year and the team is currently busy with preparing to the Opole bootcamp in March 2023; the Multilingual Learning Environments course already has its second iteration, and finally, the X as a Medium of Instruction staff training program is being further developed for its next edition.

There are also very recently proposed outputs that have progressed promisingly already, such as the student-driven project ELF vs. ELT Approaches to English Language Education with a completed pilot event in Poland, and the multilingual film project Des traces dans la neige, which is almost ready for screening. Further, a new course for the Jyväskylä FORTHEM Campus period in Autumn 2023 is prepared with the title Approaches to Multilingualism. The course is based on experts visiting Jyväskylä from all around the alliance and beyond. The initial course program and mobility plan for the guest lecturers was set up in an 8 March meeting; related workshops and a PhD researchers’ conference are also envisioned. A brand-new Reading Circle on Educational Spaces was launched on 28 February, attracting participants from the alliance and beyond including the United States and Estonia.

Reviewing the most recent and emerging ideas, altogether seven new activity proposals were presented and discussed in breakout rooms during the kick-off meeting. Based on the feedback on these proposals, planning the action plan will continue in the next regular Lab meeting in April.

In brief, the kick-off event was rich in content and the plans are versatile and inspiring. We express our gratitude to the representatives of all nine partner universities that took part in the meeting. We had the pleasure to confirm the new university level coordinators as well, so now the Lab network covers all FORTHEM universities, including the new partners, the University of Agder and Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. We also much appreciate the University of Agder CoLAB team for their continuous support in our development work.