August 2005

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ADUM PROJECT OR HOW TO GET FUNDINGS TO PROMOTE LINGUISTIC COMMUNITIES

August 2005 - The new ADUM Project’s website, a virtual community which offers information on EU programmes relevant for the funding of minorised language promotion projects to people and organisations throughout Europe working for the promotion of these languages has been launched recently. The project has received co-funding thanks to a call for proposals published by the European Commission, in the context of the Communication from the Commission called Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity: An Action Plan 2004–2006 (COM (2003) 449 final) of 24 July 2003.

The partners in this project are the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona, Catalonia); the Research Centre on Multilingualism (Katholieke Universiteit Brussel, Brussels); the Centre for European Research, Wales; the Institute of Ethnic Studies (Institut za Narodnostna Vprasanja, Ljubljana, Slovenia); the International Centre for the Study of Plurilingualism (Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy) and the independent consultant Dónall Ó'Riagáin from Ireland. Members of the team have worked together on other European projects, such as Euromosaic and Atlantis. The ADUM initiative is part of the macro-project on cultural diversity in Europe led by the Europa Diversa Network, a virtual organisation for people and institutions dedicated to understanding, discussing and working together on the situation of cultural diversity within the framework of the new Europe, and which has as one of its main founding principles the believe that cultural diversity is a richness to be respected and promoted.

The ADUM website, available in English, French and German, provides all the necessary information on the various potentially relevant EU programmes for regional, minority or minorised language communities. These programmes can be related to many different fields such as youth, education, agriculture, research and innovation, audiovisual, etc. It also offers internet links to a set of useful resources: websites on regional and minority languages, resources of statistical information, EU and other programmes, official reports and research papers. A virtual space for cooperation, where a user-friendly database of potential partners and experts is available, is also provided. This device is specially appropriate since it is more likely to get funds from European institutions if the project involves people and organisations from various countries of the EU. Another resource offered is a learning environment for designing a proposal. Candidates are advised here to take into account the needs of their language community and are given useful tips for writing the proposal and examples of successful proposals funded by the EU.