Educational inclusion: transforming linguistic diversity from obstacle to resource
Launched in 2020 and steadily growing, the simultaneous interpreting service for academic lectures has broken down language barriers for over 1,000 students in seven departments of the university
Educational Interpreting and Multilingualism, a project created for educational inclusion, is today a leading initiative in its field. Led by a strong team of professionals and a state-of-the-art hybrid delivery mode, it has been further consolidated by joining the university language centre Centro Linguistico di Ateneo (CLA).
Launched as a pilot project in February 2020, on the eve of the pandemic, the Educational Interpreting Service (EIS) has since evolved and firmly taken root in the world of academia. It has become a valuable tool for inclusion and internationalisation, with the ongoing goal of transforming linguistic diversity from an obstacle to a resource. Thanks to simultaneous interpreting, lecturers and students can now interact in real time, bridging the gap between Italian and English.
The service operates under the scientific supervision of Prof. Mariachiara Russo, former Delegate for Multilingualism at the University of Bologna, and the operational coordination of Dr. Francesco Cecchi. To guarantee the excellence required in such a complex context, the coordinator works with a team of professional interpreters: Giulia Arletti, Giacomo Collini, Alessio Langiano and Brenda Morini.
During these six years of activity, the EIS has collaborated with seven strategic departments at the university, covering disciplines ranging from the humanities to engineering: the Department of Interpretation and Translation (DIT), the Department of Business Sciences (DSA), the Department of Political and Social Sciences (DSPS) and the Department of Industrial Engineering (DIN) at the Forlì campus; the Department of Cultural Heritage (DBC) at the Ravenna campus; the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM) and the Department of History, Cultures, Civilisations (DISCI) in Bologna.
Adaptability has been one of the keys to this success. Faced with the logistical challenge of serving three different university campuses and the past health restrictions, the EIS has now developed an extremely flexible online/in-person hybrid mode of delivery. Thanks to advanced technologies, interpretation is simultaneously available in lecture halls and remotely, ensuring maximum accessibility for all.
The numbers clearly tell the impact of the initiative: since 2020, more than 30 university programmes have been supported, with over 1,000 students benefiting from more accessible study. This is an achievement that places the University of Bologna at the forefront of the academic landscape.
The value and robustness of the project have also recently been recognised outside the university. On 28 October 2025, the EIS was featured at the Treviso Campus of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, during the conference 'Resilience and Adaptation in Intercultural and Educational Mediation'. On that occasion, Dr Cecchi was invited to illustrate the Bolognese experience as a model of resilience, discussing it with Carmen Brewis and Ilse Feinauer from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). The Language Centre of the South African university, a strategic partner for Unibo, was the original source of inspiration for the project, and this meeting marked the maturity reached by the Bologna model.
Looking ahead to the coming years, Educational Interpreting continues to innovate. In addition to lecture hall translation, a unique audiovisual library is being built through the systematic recording of lectures, with the collaboration of the lecturers themselves. This digital heritage is paving the way towards new scenario, such as the creation of collaborative glossaries and the development of learning tools based on AI.