European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism supports the Helsinki Initiative

The European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism (ECSPM) finalized a "Declaration for Multilingualism in Higher Education" at the ESCPM Symposium held 24 March 2023 University of Strasbourg. ECSPM is founder of the Cluster of University Research Units for Multilingualism (CURUM), and advocates practices of and research into multilingualism in society and all its cultural activities and in plurilingual education in Europe and beyond. The Declaration's aim is to petition that multilingualism is legitimated through explicit institutional language policies, and it is addressed to (a) the Education Department of the Council of Europe, (b) the Higher Education Unit of European Commission, (c) the European University Association and (d) Higher Education Institutions across Europe and beyond.

According to the Declaration's General statement, "the signatories of the 'Declaration for Multilingualism in Higher Education', drafted by the European Civil Society Platform for Multilingualism (ECSPM), support the basic principles of the 'Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication', and agree to commit to contributing to policy-making decisions and practices which are in line with the Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)1, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, on 'The importance of plurilingual and intercultural education for democratic culture'."

Read fulltext "Declaration for Multilingualism in Higher Education" on ECSPM website (available in several languages).