In response to globalisation, the European Union continues to create strategies to maintain its competitiveness in the world
Through Europe 2020, the EU has set itself goals to spur growth and increase its employment rate whilst focusing on innovation. The EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development was created to provide support and funding for research projects. Since its first establishment in 1984, there has been a steady increase in funds available and grants given to researchers from various fields. There are now many continent-wide research initiatives under way, such as the Common Language Resources and Technology Infrastructure (CLARIN).
CLARIN was initiated in 2008 and it was funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP 7). The funds available were employed to create a prototype for CLARIN and to carry out a cost estimate. The project is currently in the process of becoming fully operational, with researchers at CLARIN stating that the infrastructure will be fit for use in approximately five years. Ultimately, CLARIN will rely solely on contributions from national governments, without any further subsidies from the European Union.
Inspired by Europe’s multilingual and multicultural landscape and its rich history, CLARIN is a project that envisions the creation of an electronic infrastructure that connects archives of various universities, libraries and other public organisations through a web-based application. The pooling of resources will primarily concern literature related to humanities, social sciences and digital media. The rationale behind CLARIN is that many researchers in the field of social sciences and humanities do not traditionally draw upon web-based resources. CLARIN aims to address this phenomenon by allowing researchers with different levels of computer skills to easily access the available archives.
This will be done through a simple sign-on feature and standardised language tools. Thus, instead of having multiple sets of log-in details for different archives and websites, users can have access to different databases with one single account. The standardised language tools can be used to translate resources into different languages, search for certain contents and even compare pieces of literature by using language manipulation.
One of the benefits of CLARIN is that its coverage reaches beyond the European Union, meaning that it is not limited solely to EU member states. The project is further rooted in the belief that all languages enjoy equal importance and hence aims to provide computer-aided translation services to fulfil its linguistic ambitions. Researchers at CLARIN realise that this is best achieved through cooperation with partner institutions across Europe. For instance, the Department of Artificial Intelligence and the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Malta have been involved in the project by contributing to the creation of language tools, providing expertise in the Maltese language. Researchers and professors at the University of Malta thus produced a list of language-specific recommendations for the Maltese language in order to assist researchers at CLARIN with the development of individual language tools.
CLARIN differs from many databases because it does not seek to create new resources or materials; its goal is to promote the exchange and integration of academic resources by bridging physical and legal barriers with its infrastructure.
Sharing information through archives on CLARIN is expected to be fairly simple – individuals and institutions can take their original documents, audio recordings and videos to a registered CLARIN centre. These resources will then be uploaded to the infrastructure where they can be used for research initiatives across countries and institutions that are part of CLARIN.
The project is based on the idea of sharing information. Moreover, scholars who use the available resources can give back to CLARIN by sharing their studies and findings in turn. This means that CLARIN does not only provide access to archived resources, but also constitutes an ever-growing platform through which users can share the latest information.
This infrastructure provides endless possibilities for researchers because of the large number of data and historical resources available. CLARIN essentially allows scholars to have access to archives all over Europe as long as they have a computer and a connection to the Internet. Besides acting as a platform for information sharing, CLARIN also enables experts to study societal developments over time, given that it provides historical content.
CLARIN is an exciting project that aims to break down linguistic and geographical barriers by digitalising resource archives and making them available in different languages, providing both visual and audio material. In addition, this demonstrates the endeavour of European member states to create opportunities for cross-border cooperation that can reach beyond the customary political and economic matters.