Reflections on Leading the LITHME COST Action Network
As Vice Chair of the LITHME COST Action (Language in the Human-Machine Era), I’ve had the privilege of helping coordinate one of Europe’s largest networks examining the intersection of linguistics and emerging technologies. Having concluded our 4-year journey, I’d like to share some reflections on what we’ve achieved.
Our network brought together over 300+ researchers across nearly 40 countries, creating collaboration between linguists, computer scientists, and technology developers. This wasn’t just an academic exercise - we built meaningful bridges between research and industry, particularly through our public roadshows featuring companies like ReadSpeaker and Nvidia.
Some key achievements stand out:
- Our forecast report on emerging language technologies has been downloaded over 4,000 times and received 38 academic citations, demonstrating real impact in shaping the discourse around language technology
- We produced 56 peer-reviewed publications through international collaboration
- Our training schools, one of which was hosted at our faculty, showed consistent improvement in participant satisfaction, rising from 7.18/10 in 2021 to 8.63/10 in 2024
- We’ve established a permanent legacy through the new Special Interest Group “Humans, Machines, Language” within BAAL, already attracting over 200 members
Looking ahead, we’re developing this momentum into new initiatives. Our Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network proposal scored 90.6% in 2023, and we’ve since refined it for resubmission. This would create funded PhD positions focused on human-machine language interaction.
The external rapporteur’s final assessment praised our “mix of public events, academic networking and engagement with stakeholders from industry and civil society.” But perhaps more importantly, we’ve created lasting connections between researchers who might otherwise never have collaborated.
For those interested in learning more about our work or getting involved in future initiatives, I encourage you to visit lithme.eu or reach out directly.
