Highlights of the year 2017.
Date: 2018-08-14
Institutions: Translation Centre
Subjects: Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, customers, interinstitutional cooperation (EU), multilingualism

TRANSLATION CENTRE 
FOR THE BODIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

HIGHLIGHTS 
OF THE YEAR

2017

FOREWORD

2017 was first and foremost a year of intense cooperation with our clients. Out 
of  the  65  clients  in  our  portfolio,  we  met  22  clients  on  a  bilateral  basis. This 
engagement enabled us to better understand their needs and take into account 
their feedback. Our clients paid less on average and were thus able to translate 
more  as  a  result  of  the  Centre’s  new  pricing  structure  for  the  translation  of 
documents which provides reductions to clients based on the reuse of content 
in our translation memories. Indeed, the number of pages other than EU trade 
marks translated for clients increased by 13.9% in 2017. The average price paid 
by clients during 2017 for translating standard documents was EUR 67 per page 
whereas the list price is EUR 82 per page as published in the Centre’s price list. 

2017 was also a year of investment in the Centre’s core business. The new eCdT 
in-house translators’ module was deployed, in addition to the migration of our 
in-house translators to the latest version of SDL Studio (2017). Our translation 
quality  assurance  system  was  given  a  renewed  impetus  with  the  deployment 
of our Translation Quality Assurance Action Plan 2017-2018. Following feedback 
from  clients,  we  introduced  improvements  to  the  eCdT  client  portal.  We 
also  implemented  the  group  assignment  procedure  in  order  to  speed  up  the 
outsourcing process with our external language service providers and improve 
on time delivery to clients. 

During  2017,  we  launched  our  new  website  and  a  dedicated  subsite  for  our 
management  board. We  were  awarded,  in  conjunction  with  the  EUIPO  and 
EU-OSHA, the 2017 European Ombudsman Award for Good Administration in 
the category ‘Excellence in citizen/customer focused services delivery’ for our 
collaboration in managing multilingual websites. 

On behalf of our interinstitutional partners, we continued to manage the world’s 
largest terminology database, the InterActive Terminology for Europe database 
(IATE),  and  progressed  the  development  of  IATE  2  which  will  be  launched  in 
2018. With 32.8 million queries for its public version and 18.7 million queries for 
its internal version used by the EU institutions in 2017, IATE is clearly a highly 
popular tool. 

My sincere thanks go to the Centre’s staff for their continuous commitment and 
to all our partners without whom the Centre would not be what it is today. As 
a  result  of  our  ongoing  cooperation,  I  look  forward  to  the  opportunities  and 
challenges of 2018. 

Máire Killoran

Director

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Content

3

CONTENT

KEY 
PRODUCTION 
FIGURES FOR 
2017

INTER- 
INSTITUTIONAL 
COOPERATION

QUALITY MATTERS

ENHANCING 
CLIENT 
COOPERATION

MEASURING 
CLIENT 
SATISFACTION

PARTICIPATING 
IN THE 
EU AGENCIES’ 
NETWORK

COOPERATING 
WITH EXTERNAL 
LANGUAGE 
SERVICE 
PROVIDERS

INTERACTING 
WITH THE GLOBAL 
TRANSLATION 
COMMUNITY

ENGAGING WITH 
THE ACADEMIC 
WORLD

EXTERNAL 
COMMUNICATION 
ACTIVITIES

ANNEXES

We are at 
your service

Highlights of the year 2017
This publication of the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union is available on its website: cdt.europa.eu
Further information on the European Union is accessible via the Europa server (europa.eu).
© Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, 2018. All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-92-95074-98-9
ISSN 2363-0221
doi: 10.2817/80539

4-510-131821-236-714-1519168-91720DOCUMENTS

Volume 2016 (in pages)

Volume 2017 (in pages)

-14.5 %

79404.00

77.0 %

24012.50

-23.6 %

46340.00

100.8 %

13983.00

70.2 %

9900.00

103.8 %

6778.00

-11.1 %

14240.00

20.2 %

87.3 %

75.7 %

74.3 %

8440.50

5017.50

4087.50

4028.00

9.7 %

5638.50

28.9 %

-0.8 %

4174.50

4783.00

170.8 %

1729.00

-2.7 %

4739.00

-23.0 %

5741.00

-29.9 %

5825.00

103.9 %

1848.50

19.8 %

47.0 %

91.0 %

-6.8 %

-1.3 %

2872.00

2107.00

1607.50

2962.00

2481.00

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3505.00

1.9 %

2014.50

16849.50

13816.50

12659.50

10146.00

9398.00

7183.50

7021.00

6187.50

5381.00

4742.50

4681.50

4611.50

4421.00

4080.50

3768.50

3439.50

3098.00

3071.00

2760.00

2448.00

2068.50

2052.50

67852.00

42511.00

35422.00

28075.50







Volume increase

Stable volume

Volume decrease

+0.5%
(2016)

98.8%

DEADLINE COMPLIANCE
The  Centre  delivered  services  to  its  clients 
on time in 98.8% of cases (98.3% in 2016). 
Specifically  with  regard  to  documents,  the 
Centre delivered translations to its clients on time 
in  97.5%  of  cases  (95%  in  2016).  In  this  context, ‘translations’ 
covers the following services invoiced in pages: translation, editing, 
modification,  revision  and  excludes  EU  trade  marks  which  are 
always sent within the contractual deadline, i. e. six days after their 
submission. 

Types of deadlines requested by clients

Normal

56.1%

Scheduled Urgent

Slow Very urgent

17.6%

14.7% 11.5% 0.06%

VOLUME VS FORECAST
(Documents and trade marks only)

Preliminary draft budget 2017
Initial budget 2017

Amending budget 1/2017

Delivered pages including the Centre

Delivered pages excluding the Centre

Invoiced pages after translation memory analysis

Delivered pages to the EUIPO

0
0
0

5
5
4

0
0
5

6
3
4

7
5
1

2
8
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9
4
6

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DOCUMENTS

EU TRADE MARKS

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

EUIPO

EMA

ECHA

EASO

EBA

DG EMPL

FRA

EU-OSHA

eu-LISA

SRB

ESMA

EACEA

ECDC

Eurofound

Chafea

Frontex

EDPS

ERA

EFCA

EMCDDA

EFSA

EIGE

Ombudsman

EEA

DG JUST

EIOPA

Council

BEREC Office

EMSA

ETF

ACER

Europol

ECB

CJEU

CPVO

EASA

INEA

SESAR JU

F4E JU

ECA

ERCEA

OSGES

EIT

Cedefop

ENISA

CEPOL

CoR

EDA

EESC

GSA

BBI JU

ECSEL JU

IMI 2 JU

Clean Sky 2 JU

EASME

S2R JU

EIB

REA

FCH 2 JU

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134.4 %

117.0 %

162.1 %

815.50

1911.50

719.50

1561.00

543.00

1423.00

-40.4 %

2362.50

1408.00

-4.8 %

1196.50

1139.00

175.2 %

367.50

1011.50

37.8 %

577.50

796.00

137.5 %

331.00

786.00

-49.4 %

1530.50

775.00

-45.1 %

-44.6 %

-38.9 %

-35.8 %

69.9 %

-51.6 %

100.0 %

-73.3 %

-73.8 %

954.00

523.50

867.50

480.50

546.00

333.50

467.00

300.00

167.50

284.50

489.50

237.00

0.00

221.00

793.50

211.50

731.00

191.50

61.4 %

110.00

177.50

-58.0 %

301.00

126.50

50.8 %

-22.5 %

-23.2 %

-35.6 %

100.0 %

50.0 %

-35.3 %

-78.4 %

-67.6 %

100.0 %

-71.5 %

-97.9 %

-100.0 %

66.00

84.50

77.50

66.00

0.00

23.00

51.00

106.50

99.50

65.50

59.50

42.50

35.50

34.50

33.00

23.00

68.00

22.00

0.00

22.00

72.00

20.50

142.00

36.00

3.00

0.00

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DEADLINE COMPLIANCE

Volume increase

Stable volume

Volume decrease

Very urgent

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Key production figures

5

1 

KEY PRODUCTION

FIGURES FOR 2017

In terms of volume, the Centre translated 772 901 pages compared to the 

784 982 pages forecast for 2017 in the amending budget. This represents an 

increase of 3.5% compared to 2016 and of 6% compared to 2015. 

On 1 January 2017, the Centre put 
in place a new pricing structure 
which offers a price reduction to 
clients for documents translated 
using  the  Centre’s  translation 
memories.  The  impact  of  the 
new  pricing  structure  on  the 
number  of  invoiced  pages  was 
-15.9%  (38  899  pages),  which 

corresponds  to  a  total  saving 
of  almost  EUR  3.2  million  for 
the  Centre’s  clients.  This  price 
reduction  stimulated  demand 
translation  services  and 
for 
as  a  result,  the  number  of 
document 
translated 
pages 
for  clients  increased  by  13.9% 
(+39  183  pages)  compared  to 

the  previous  year.  Overall,  the 
Centre  translated  more  pages 
than in the past, but generated a 
revenue  similar  to  the  previous 
year.

VOLUME EVOLUTION
(All linguistic services)

772 901 

+3.5% (2016)

total pages translated in 2017

330 252 pages of 
documents

442 649  pages of
EU trade marks

+14.1% (2016)

-3.4 %
(2016) 

900 000

800 000

700 000

600 000

500 000

400 000

300 000

200 000

100 000

5
9
9
1

6
9
9
1

7
9
9
1

8
9
9
1

9
9
9
1

0
0
0
2

1
0
0
2

2
0
0
2

3
0
0
2

4
0
0
2

5
0
0
2

6
0
0
2

7
0
0
2

8
0
0
2

9
0
0
2

0
1
0
2

1
1
0
2

2
1
0
2

3
1
0
2

4
1
0
2

5
1
0
2

6
1
0
2

7
1
0
2

BUT ALSO...

74 395

-62.2% (2016)

term list entries translated 
or revised

2 455

+104.4% (2016)

minutes of subtitling

16 250

pages of editing

-23.9% (2016)

231

-13.2% (2016)

man/days of terminology work

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Interinstitutional cooperation

6

INTERINSTITUTIONAL

2 

COOPERATION

HARMONISING WORKING METHODS AND 
TERMINOLOGY THROUGHOUT THE EU
The Centre’s representatives regularly meet with their colleagues from the 

translation services of the EU institutions to discuss matters of common 

interest such as recruitment, training, language technology, as well as 

common projects such as IATE or machine translation.

ICTI

MACHINE TRANSLATION

TRANSCRIPTION SERVICES 
& SPEECH RECOGNITION

and 

in 
participated 
The  Centre 
the  various  meetings  of 
the 
Interinstitutional  Committee  for 
Interpretation 
Translation 
(ICTI),  the  Executive  Committee 
for  Translation  (ECT)  and  the  
Coordination  Committee 
for 
Translation (CCT). The September 
2017  ECT  newsletter  included 
an  interview  with  the  Centre’s 
Director.  Representatives 
from 
the  Centre  also  attended  a 
major 
event 
interinstitutional 
on  terminology  management  at 
the  European  Court  of  Justice. 
Unsurprisingly, 
they  all  agreed 
that  without  good  terminology, 
it  is  difficult  to  ensure  consistent 
quality and that terminology is part 
and parcel of translators’ work.

in 

  The 

In  2017,  the  Centre  continued 
the  analysis  of  the  necessary 
developments in order to integrate 
the 
translation 
machine 
linguistic pre-processing workflow. 
The  purpose  of  this  integration 
is  to  enhance  the  translation 
integration  of 
process. 
machine translation for use by the 
Centre’s  in-house  translators  will 
be  undertaken  in  2018.  It  should 
be  noted  that  the  Commission  is 
moving from statistical MT engines 
(MT@EC)  towards  neural  ones 
(eTranslation)  and  the  Centre 
will 
follow  suit.  During  2017, 
the  Centre  worked  with  the 
Commission  to  create  five  new 
MT  engines  in  MT@EC. The  new 
engines  are  based  on  corpora  for 
ECHA and EMA that coexist with 
other  previously-created  EMA 
engines. Tests will be carried out in 
2018 with neural MT engines.

the 

interest 

Considering  that  some  clients 
had  expressed  an 
in 
transcription  services,  the  Centre 
analysed  how  it  could  best  meet 
this  need.  At  the  end  of  2017, 
the  analysis  was  ongoing  and  was 
focused  on  the  comparison  of 
different technologies.
The  Centre  has  also  adopted 
procedures  on 
subtitling 
workflow  and,  more  specifically, 
on  the  use  of  automated  speech 
recognition  engines  for  the  pre-
processing  of  video  and  audio 
includes 
material.  This  process 
data  preparation,  collection  and 
correction  in  order  to  train  and 
enhance  the  engines  used  for  the 
processing  of  subtitling  requests 
submitted by clients and as a result, 
achieve  efficiencies  in  the  overall 
workflow.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Interinstitutional cooperation

7

IATE 2 ON ITS WAY

The development of the new version 

of the interinstitutional terminology 

database, IATE, is moving forward at 

a steady pace. IATE 2 will be available 

in autumn 2018. 

TERMINOLOGY PROJECTS FOR 
OUR CLIENTS

The Centre continued to enlarge its terminology resources 
with a view to increasing the quality and consistency of the 
translations it provides to its clients. The following terminology 
projects were completed in 2017:

 J EMCDDA phase IV: the multilingual collection created 
in  2010  was  completed  with  50  new  entries  in  25 
languages (EU languages, Norwegian and Turkish). 
 J EU-OSHA:  the  multilingual  thesaurus  created  by  the 
Publications  Office  used  for  indexing  Europa.eu,  EUR-
Lex  and  the  EU-Bookshop  was  subject  to  a  revision 
project  for  all  the  EU  languages  and  to  a  translation 
project  into  four  new  languages  (MT,  HR,  IS,  NO  -  a 
total of 1 921 terms).

 J EUIPO: a terminology project in the field of EU Designs 
and Trade  Marks  was  started  in  2017  and  is  due  to 
continue throughout 2018. Some 135 full terminological 
entries were completed in DE, EN, ES, FR and IT, while a 
term list was prepared for the same terms in 18 other 
EU languages. 

Once  validated  by  the  experts,  the  data  will  be  available  in 
IATE  for  consultation  and  used  for  term  verification  and 
quality assurance in documents translated by the Centre. The 
following projects were ongoing at the end of the year: ECHA 
– 46 entries in 23 languages, and EU OSHA – 200 entries in 
23 EU languages, NO and IS.
Interinstitutional terminology meetings
In  2017,  the  Centre  hosted  for  the  first  time  the  annual 
Interinstitutional  Language  and  IATE  Meeting  of  Danish 
terminologists. The  Centre’s  other  language  teams  attended 
their language-specific interinstitutional terminology meetings.

PROGRESS STATUS
Milestone  1  of  the  project  was  achieved  at  the  end 
of  August  2017  with  the  main  functionalities  for 
translators,  terminologists  and  external  users  (search, 
extended  search,  enriched  results  page,  data  entry, 
advanced reference management and linking with EUR-
Lex, a new responsive and accessible user interface and 
a web services layer for all the developed features).
Milestone  2  was  launched  in  September  2017  and 
involved  an  audit  module,  improved  term  recognition 
for  document-specific  retrievals  fully  compatible  with 
Computer-Assisted  Translation  tools,  full  migration 
of  the  data  from  IATE  to  IATE  2,  login  via  EU  Login 
and integration with QUEST II. The localisation of the 
interface  is  currently  ongoing  and  other  advanced 
features  will  be  tackled  in  2018  (import,  advanced 
export, validation mechanism, restore deleted content, 
manual and automatic merging, etc.).
Milestone  3  will  address  nice-to-have  features  which 
will  be  developed  once  IATE  2  is  in  production 
(communication and terminology project management, 
advanced  statistics,  user/tasks  dashboard,  online  help, 
etc.).
Internal and external partners will benefit from a web 
service that will allow the consultation of IATE 2 data 
from third-party tools.

ACCEPTANCE ENVIRONMENT AVAILABLE FOR 
TESTING
The  official  IATE  2  Acceptance  environment  for 
extensive testing by users from among the IATE partners 
was launched on 15 January 2018 and can be accessed 
https://webgate.acceptance.ec.testa.eu/iate2/. 
under 
Please contact iate@cdt.europa.eu for the credentials. 
A monthly release with the new developments is made 
available for testing and feedback.

 
 
 
2018 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Quality matters

8

3 

QUALITY MATTERS

Quality matters were once again a top priority for the Centre in order to ensure 

client satisfaction.

THE ADDED VALUE OF REVISION AND CROSS-
CHECKS 

The Centre’s in-house translators revise the documents 
translated  by  our  external  language  service  providers.  
In  2017,  they  assessed  that  99%  of  the  outsourced 
documents  were  of  reasonable  or  acceptable  quality 
while 0.93% were of unacceptable quality.

This means that only 0.07% of the outsourced documents 
were  delivered  to  clients  without  any  additional 
modification by the Centre’s in-house translators.  The 
remaining  99%  of  outsourced  translations  underwent 
various degrees of improvement, from light to medium 
in  the  case  of  fairly  acceptable  quality  translations  to 
extensive revision and even retranslation in the case of 
unacceptable translations. The objective of this revision 
effort  is  to  ensure  that  translations  are  accurate  and 
suitable  for  their  intended  purpose  when  delivered  to 
clients.  

In addition to the revision of documents translated by 
our  external  language  service  providers,  the  Centre’s 
translators cross-check a high percentage of documents 
translated by their in-house colleagues. In 2017, 79% of 
the documents translated in-house were cross-checked 
by another member of the same language team. 

REVIEW OF CORE BUSINESS PROCESSES

The  two  critical  core  business  processes  covering  the 
translation of documents and the translation of EU trade 
marks  and  Community  Designs  were  revised  in  2017. 
This  led  to  a  more  efficient  use  of  resources  and  had 
a positive impact on the main objective of the process, 
which  is  to  ensure  the  on  time  delivery  of  language 

services to clients.

TRANSLATION  QUALITY  ASSURANCE  ACTION 
PLAN (TQAAP)

At  the  beginning  of  2017,  the  Centre  adopted  the 
TQAAP for 2017-2018. By the end of 2017, over half of 
the plan (58%) had been implemented. 

IMPROVING AND SHARING LINGUISTIC ASSETS

memories 

reorganised 

its 
The  Centre 
and 
translation 
terminology databases to increase 
linguistic quality.  As of 1 October 
2017,  external  language  service 
job-specific 
receive 
providers 
extracts of the Centre’s translation 
memories 
terminology 
and 
databases.

The Centre uses a 
wide array of tools 
and procedures to 
monitor translation 
output and enhance 
quality.

EX-POST QUALITY CONTROL

•  Quarterly  ex-post  quality  checks  on  samples 
of  documents  are  part  of  the  Centre’s  work 
programme. The  results  for  2017  were  within  the 
targets set in the work programme:

• 

in-house  were 
98%  of  documents  translated 
assessed to be of excellent or acceptable quality by 
the external language service providers;

•  Additionally, 96% of documents translated in-house 
or  externally  were  assessed  to  be  of  excellent  or 
acceptable  quality  by  the  quality  coordinator  in 
each language team;

• 

Finally, 99.3% of segments of EU trade marks were 
assessed to be of excellent or acceptable quality by 
the in-house translators who checked 54 language 
pairs.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Quality matters

9

Successful launch of the eCdT In-house Translators’ Module  
Investing in new technologies to optimise the workflow

The working environment of the Centre’s 100+ translators changed 

dramatically in 2017. A brand-new module tailored to their needs was added to 

eCdT, the new translation workflow management system, which was launched 

in 2016. The translators are unanimous: the ergonomics are great and the tool 

enhances team work and quality.

SELF-SERVICE

OVERVIEW

The translators can book certain 
tasks.

The translators benefit from a bird’s 
eye view of the workflow. 

Instead  of  being  assigned  all  tasks  by  the Workflow 
Management  Section,  the  translators  can  choose  the 
documents they wish to translate from a selected list 
and can also pre-book certain outsourced translations 
they wish to revise.

The  new  tool  offers  the  possibility  to  see  what  the 
other members of a language team are working on or 
what is upcoming so that translators can check if there 
is anything related to their tasks.

FORUM

FEEDBACK

The translators use a platform to 
exchange information. 

The translators handle feedback in 
one central place. 

Through the forum, the translators can share information 
on  specific  jobs,  clients’  preferences,  terminology,  etc. 
The  forum  is  characterised  by  improved  ergonomics, 
powerful search filters and a long-term memory.

The  Centre’s  translators  use  the  tool  to  provide 
feedback  to  external  language  service  providers,  to 
fellow in-house translators (cross-checking), to the re-
ranking  committee  (for  exemplary  or  unsatisfactory 
language jobs) and to clients.

FLEXIBILITY

NEW CAT TOOL

The translators have access to their 
colleagues’ files. 

The translators work in SDL Trados 
Studio 2017. 

The translators can ‘shelve’ the files while working on 
them so that their colleagues in the same language team 
can access them, whenever necessary.

The  latest  version  of  the  Centre’s  computer-assisted 
translation (CAT) tool was installed in the translators’ 
new working environment.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Enhancing client cooperation

10

4 

ENHANCING

CLIENT COOPERATION

Throughout 2017, the Centre continued to engage with its clients: 22 of them 

(34% of its client portfolio) were met bilaterally to discuss specific projects 

or to identify opportunities for closer cooperation. The Centre also further 

enlarged its client base and followed up on potential future client dossiers.

NEW AGREEMENT AND POTENTIAL FUTURE 
CLIENTS
A  cooperation  agreement  was  signed  with  the 
European  School  Luxembourg  II  (EEL2)  in  May 
2017,  which  brought  the  Centre’s  client  portfolio 
to 65 clients.
Following  Council  Regulation  (EU)  2017/1939 
of  12  October  2017  implementing  enhanced 
cooperation on the establishment of the European 
Public Prosecutor’s Office (‘the EPPO’), the Centre 
was informed by the European Commission that a 
steady need for translations would arise once the 
EPPO starts investigations and prosecutions from 
2021 onwards.
Follow-up  conversations  regarding  the  Centre’s 
cooperation with the Unified Patent Court (UPC) 
were  postponed  to  spring  2018  due  to  delays  in 
the ratification process of the UPC agreement.

TRANSLATION CONTACT NETWORK (TCN) 
MEETING
The third meeting of the TCN, created in 2014 to 
foster  information  exchange  and  good  practice 
sharing between the Centre and its clients, was held 
in January 2017 in Luxembourg. It was attended by 
22  representatives  from  20  client  organisations. 
The  meeting  aimed  at  exchanging  experiences 
with  regard  to  the  new  eCdT  Client  Portal  and 
the  Centre’s  new  pricing  structure;  informing 
clients about developments for IATE2; and sharing 
‘tips  and  tricks’  for  authors  of  documents  to  be 
translated  by  the  Centre.  Based  on  presentations 
by the European Union Intellectual Property Office 

(EUIPO)  and  the  European  Environment  Agency 
(EEA),  the  meeting  also  discussed  linguistic  policy 
matters  as  well  as  the  management  of  large-scale 
terminology projects.

TEST OF THE BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN
In November 2017, the Centre tested its Business 
Continuity  Management  System  (BCMS)  with  the 
simulation  of  a  fire  incident  in  the  building. This 
exercise  involved  the  relocation  of  the  Business 
Continuity Management Team to the Centre’s crisis 
management room at  the  Court  of  Justice  of  the 
EU in order to analyse the situation and launch the 
Centre’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP), including 
communication  to  clients  based  on  predefined 
crisis  communication 
templates.  The  clients’ 
response  to  the  test  was  very  high,  showing  that 
communication mechanisms function well between 
the  Centre  and  its  clients  in  the  event  of  a  crisis 
situation. 

Translation Contact Network meeting 2017

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Enhancing client cooperation

11

BILATERAL MEETINGS WITH CLIENTS

JANUARY

European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) 

In a video-conference meeting in January, ECHA informed the 
Centre of their intention to launch a call for tender for the 
development of IT software systems, including localisation 
services in which they would like to involve the Centre. They 
asked the Centre for input on the tender specifications. In 
various follow-up exchanges, both parties defined the scope 
of the first project. They discussed the possibility of using the 
Centre’s future web translation service, which integrates the 
Centre’s business-to-business (B2B) web service solution, 
for the transmission of translation requests from the IT 
software system developed by ECHA’s contractor directly 
to the Centre’s eCdT Client Portal, allowing ECHA to track 
requests at all times for invoicing purposes. The project plan 
and milestones will be defined further in 2018. 

FEBRUARY

European Union Agency for Fundamental 
Rights (FRA) 

The Centre’s Director and the Head of the Translation 
Department met with FRA’s Director and with the Heads 
of the Editing and Production and Communication Sections 
in Vienna. Discussions focused on the Centre’s new pricing 
structure, quality assurance procedures, the use of translation 
memories and the management of client feedback.

MARCH

Education, Audiovisual and Culture 
Executive Agency (EACEA)

Representatives from the Centre met with the EACEA’s main 
contact person responsible for placing translation requests 
with the Centre, as well as with representatives from the 
agency’s operational units in Brussels in order to present the 
Centre’s new pricing structure, clarify accounting questions, 
discuss quality assurance matters and provide training on the 
eCdT Client Portal.

Training session with Frontex

Meeting with FRA

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs 
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) 

In January, the Centre organised a language-specific 
information exchange with the EMCDDA’s French focal 
point, which is regularly involved in the quality check of the 
translation of the agency’s annual Drug Report and related 
material. The meeting helped increase mutual understanding 
of processes and working methods and clarify specific core 
terminology concepts. The positive feedback received from 
the French focal point on the translation delivered later in the 
year by the Centre confirmed the success of this seminar.

European Medicines Agency (EMA) 

The Centre met EMA via video-conference in February to 
clarify questions regarding the Centre’s new pricing structure 
and the handling of EMA templates.
Representatives from the Centre also attended the meetings 
of EMA’s Quality Review of Documents (QRD) with the 
national authorities in London in March and in June, where, 
among other things, the implementation of the Centre’s CSF 
workflow, for the Member State review of translations of 
product information for new medicinal products developed 
by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), was discussed.

European Border and Coast Guard 
Agency (Frontex) 

The Centre’s Director and the Head of the Translation 
Department met with Frontex’ Executive Director, Director 
of Corporate Governance and staff from various operational 
units in Warsaw in March to discuss how to strengthen 
cooperation and meet the agency’s new multilingual needs in 
the framework of its extended mandate. 

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs 
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) 

A meeting between the Centre’s Director and the 
EMCDDA’s member on the Centre’s management board in 
March facilitated progress on the terminology project which 
the Centre undertook for the agency in 2017.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Enhancing client cooperation

12

European Union Intellectual Property 
Office (EUIPO) 

The Centre welcomed the Head of the Office’s Proofreading 
team for a job shadowing exercise with the Centre’s English 
team. The meeting was preceded by a presentation of the 
Office’s linguistic team, workflows and working methods as 
well as guidelines for proofreading.
Throughout the year, the Centre and the EUIPO liaised 
with regard to the various projects in which both agencies 
are involved: terminology projects; the results of ex-post 
quality check (EPQC) exercises for documents and trade 
marks; the update of the Office’s Guidelines in the 18 non-
Office languages; the Office’s Multilingual Communications 
Management Project; the Office’s request for the creation 
of EUIPO specific machine translation engines for future 
use with the Office’s case law database; the extension to 
non-EU languages of terms sent through the Terminology 
Maintenance Console (TMC) to enable non-EU countries 
to join the Office’s Harmonised Database in the future; the 
Centre’s plans for a new tool to manage the translation of 
EU trade marks; as well as improvements requested by the 
EUIPO to the Centre’s eCdT Client Portal.

European Fisheries Control Agency 
(EFCA) 

The Head of the Centre’s Translation Department visited 
EFCA in Vigo, Spain. During a meeting with the agency’s 
representative on the Centre’s Management Board 
and other staff members, he presented the Centre, its 
organisation, mission, client policy, services, pricing structure, 
workflows and quality assurance policy. 
EFCA informed the Centre that they were currently 
examining how to achieve synergies with both Frontex and 
EMSA, since the three agencies may collaborate to use the 
same boats for operations to look for different suspicious 
patterns of behaviour. The Centre regularly translates Joint 
Deployment Plans (JDPs) and calls for tenders for the agency. 
The agency also developed a platform for e-learning tutorials 
and content needed to be translated for an inspection 
module was made available in seven languages.

Meeting with EASO in Malta

European Commission – DG Translation 
(EC DGT) 

The DGT’s new full member and alternate member on the 
Centre’s Management Board visited the Centre in March. On 
various occasions during the year, the Centre’s Director met 
DGT’s Director-General, who is the chairman of the Centre’s 
Management Board, to discuss strategic matters and prepare 
the Board meetings. At the operational level, the Centre’s 
staff had various exchanges with DGT regarding machine 
translation and Euramis.

European Railway Agency (ERA) 

A video-conference took place between the Centre and ERA 
in March to follow up on the agency’s 4th railway package 
project. Under this package which will enter into force in 
2019, ERA’s mission will be extended to the granting of 
safety certificates and vehicle authorisations. The discussions 
focused on the development of ERA’s One-Stop-Shop (OSS), 
the platform that aims at managing all requests for Single 
Safety Certificates and Vehicle Authorisations. The first 
release by ERA is expected in 2018. The Centre is analysing 
the possibility of providing ERA with raw translations to 
allow a global understanding of high volumes of documents 
in a limited timeframe and the requirements of a future 
post-editing service. During 2017, the Centre developed 
a business-to-business (B2B) interface which could be 
customised to enable ERA to easily submit translation 
requests to the Centre.

APRIL

Agency for the Operational Management 
of large-scale IT systems in the area of 
freedom, security and justice (eu-LISA) 

The Head of the Centre’s Translation Department met with 
staff from the agency’s various departments, including eu-
LISA’s Communications and Information Officer, in Tallinn, 
Estonia. He presented the Centre’s services, especially 
subtitling, the new pricing structure and quality assurance 
system. The eu-LISA representatives indicated that they 
expected the mandate of their agency to be broadened and 
that a number of new publications and IT interfaces may need 
to be translated over the next few years.

JUNE

European Asylum Support Office (EASO) 

The Centre’s Director and the Head of the Translation 
Department met with EASO’s Head of the Communications 
and Stakeholders Unit ad interim in Malta and presented 
the Centre’s activities and procedures to staff members 
from various operational units. The goal of the visit was to 
see how to strengthen cooperation in view of the agency’s 
extended mandate and to discuss particular requirements 
for translations into non-EU languages. A meeting with 
EASO’s Executive Director concluded the visit.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Enhancing client cooperation

13

European Ombudsman 

Following the European Ombudsman Award for Good 
Administration which was awarded jointly to the Centre, 
the EUIPO and EU-OSHA, the Ombudsman invited the 
Centre to present its work on multilingual websites at the 
Ombudsman’s staff meeting held in June in Luxembourg. 
After a short introduction to enable the participants to 
understand the Centre’s business and the general context 
of the project, namely the EU Agencies’ commitment to 
multilingualism, the Centre’s representatives explained how 
the Centre cooperated with the EUIPO and EU-OSHA 
to put in place a translation manager module and related 
workflow for the translation of their multilingual websites. 
The presentation also outlined the Centre’s future web 
translation service for Drupal 7 based websites, which is 
planned to be launched in spring 2018. It builds on the 
current solution and will focus on the automation of both 
the creation of the translation request and the final upload 
of translated content onto the client’s content management 
system (CMS), as well as on the optimisation of the Centre’s 
quality assurance steps during the web translation process.

European Agency for Safety and Health at 
Work (EU-OSHA) 

Representatives from the Centre met EU-OSHA’s Head of 
Communications and member of the Centre’s Management 
Board in Luxembourg in October to discuss the ongoing 
and future EU-OSHA Thesaurus projects which involve 
interactions with the Publications Office regarding the 
linking of IATE with EuroVoc. 
A video-conference in November helped clarify questions in 
relation to the Centre’s future web translation service for 
Drupal 7 based websites.

European Commission Directorate-General 
for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) 

The Centre’s Legal Affairs Section met with representatives 
from DG JUST to follow up on the Online Dispute 
Resolution (ODR) project and to negotiate a new 
cooperation agreement which came into effect in 2018.

Visiting Eurojust and Europol in The Hague

European Border and Coast Guard Agency 
(Frontex) 

Frontex representatives visited the Centre in June to brief 
translators as well as staff members from the Translation 
Support Department on an upcoming key translation project: 
the ‘CCC (Common Core Curriculum) for Border and 
Coast Guard Basic Training in the EU’. This greatly facilitated 
the handling of this major project which was successfully 
completed at the end of August 2017.

European Central Bank (ECB)

The Centre received representatives from the ECB’s 
Language Services Division for a benchmarking visit relating 
to quality assurance and best practices in translation revision.

OCTOBER

European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs):  
European Banking Authority (EBA); European 
Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and 
European Insurance and Occupational Pensions 
Authority (EIOPA)

A video-conference was held in October with the three ESAs 
(EBA, ESMA and EIOPA) in order to discuss the setting up 
of a joint ESA-JC account on the eCdT Client Portal and 
the modalities for invoicing joint requests placed under this 
account. Following the agreement signed by the ESAs and 
the Centre in February 2018, the joint ESA-JC account was 
established. 
The ESAs work together on dedicated areas under the Joint 
Committee (JC). The presidency of the JC rotates every 
year between the ESAs. There are 4 standing committees 
(anti-money laundering; consumer protection; financial 
conglomerates and risk committee). The outcome of their 
work may be joint guidelines or recommendations to be 
translated by the Centre. They are published on a dedicated 
ESA-JC website. Cooperation may be between all three ESAs 
or between two ESAs, depending on the subject. 

NOVEMBER

European Union Agency for Network and 
Information Security (ENISA) 

Representatives from ENISA visited the Centre to attend 
training on the eCdT Client Portal and to discuss the 
agency’s re-organisation and future translation needs in view 
of its revised Founding Regulation which is scheduled to 
enter into effect in mid-2018.

European Union Agency for Law Enforcement 
Cooperation (Europol) and European Judicial 
Cooperation Unit (Eurojust) 

The Centre’s Director and the Head of the Translation 
Department met with Eurojust’s Administrative Director and 
Head of Operations ad interim , followed by a meeting with 
Europol’s Executive Director and other key staff members 
to discuss opportunities for business development with the 
Centre.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Measuring client satisfaction

14

5 

MEASURING

CLIENT SATISFACTION

Measuring client satisfaction, as well as analysing 

and processing client feedback, remained recurrent 

and important activities in 2017. 

-1.3%
(2016)

4.5%

RETURN RATE
OF CLIENT 
SATISFACTION FORMS
(CSFs)

Areas identified as 
weaknesses on CSFs

Delays in 
delivery
6%

Other
19%

Formatting
15%

Linguistic 
issues
44%

Terminology
16%

5
9
5

4
1
4

8
6
3

Top 10 clients 
by number of CSFs
returned

5
5
1

4
4
1

8
3
1

3
0
1

0
9

6
8

0
7

Very satisfied
Satisfied
Fairly satisfied
Not satisfied at all
Return rate

4.7%

3.8%

2.7%

5.8%

7%, 239

4.5%

11%, 254

19%, 439

13%, 287

20%, 441

42%, 1381

14%, 337

24%, 610

46%, 1049

42%, 923

32%, 1053

48%, 1179

24%, 539

25%, 537

18%, 586

14%, 353

9%, 182

26%, 528

48%, 968

17%, 354

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

CSFs return rate and distribution by satisfaction level

for 

received 

versus 
(except  EU 

The  overall  return  rate  of 
jobs 
CSFs 
trade 
delivered 
marks;  Community  designs  and 
Euroclass terms) was 4.5%, which 
was 1.3% lower than in 2016.
‘not 
the  rate 
Although 
satisfied  at  all’  CSFs  doubled  in 
2017  compared  with  2016,  the 
added  figure  of  CSFs  marked  as 
‘fairly  satisfied’  and ‘not  satisfied 
at  all’  (38%)  was  inferior  to  the 
added figure (49%) for these two 
categories in 2016. 62% of CSFs 
were marked as ‘satisfied’ or ‘very 
satisfied’  in  2017,  which  is  well 
above the aggregated figures for 
both categories (50%) in 2016.
analysed 
All  CSFs  were 
individually and the corresponding 
actions  were  taken  to  satisfy 
clients’  requirements.  Follow-
up  measures  included  particular 
document  alignments,  capturing 
clients’ preferences in the quality 
assurance  tools  linked  to  the 
CAT  tool  used  by  translators, 
targeted  feedback  and  updated 
instructions for external language 
service  providers,  as  well  as 
specific  training  courses  for  in-
house  translators  and  technical 
staff.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Measuring client satisfaction

15

Surveys
Two surveys were conducted among the Centre’s stakeholders in 2017.

a  comprehensive  online 

EXTERNAL SURVEY 
The  Translation  Centre  was  mandated  by  its 
Management  Board  to  commission  an  external 
‘Study  on  the Translation  Centre  as  the  linguistic 
shared  service  provider  for  the  EU  agencies  and 
bodies’. 
As  part  of  this  study,  the  external  contractor 
conducted 
survey 
among  the  Centre’s  key  stakeholders  (clients,  the 
Management Board (MB), external language service 
providers  and  staff)  in  order  to  measure  their 
satisfaction  with  the  Centre,  review  the  Centre’s 
performance  and  consider  how  best  to  develop 
its activities in the future. According to the report 
provided  by  the  contractor,  a  total  of  250  usable 
responses were received which represents a 52% 
response rate to the online survey. The study will 
be  presented  at  the  Centre’s  management  board 
meetings in 2018.

eCDT CLIENT PORTAL SURVEY 
As  a  follow-up  action  to  the Translation  Contact 
Network meeting held in January 2017, the Centre 
conducted  a  survey  among  the  contact  persons 
responsible for handling translation requests in each 
client organisation in order to obtain feedback on 
the  new  eCdT  Client  Portal  which  was  deployed 
to all clients in 2016. The survey response rate was 
33.9%. Overall, the results were very positive. 
Following the survey, the Centre drew up a list of 
improvements,  many  of  which  were  implemented 
on  the  eCdT  Client  Portal  by  the  end  of  2017, 
such as: more details in the presentation of price 
information on the ‘request summary’ page; new file 
formats  (rtf  and  .properties);  comments  provided 
by the Centre’s linguists for clients via the request 
summary page; improved communication between 
request  ‘drafters’  and  ‘senders’;  and  improved 
notifications  for  the  transmission  of  information 
related to client requests.

How well is the Translation Centre performing 
in terms of quality, price, and meeting deadlines? 
(30 MB replies)

How would you rate the relationship between 
your organisation and the Translation Centre? 
(34 MB replies / 15 EU Agencies’ replies)

Quality
Price
Meeting deadlines

%
7
6
6

.

%
0
0
0

.

%
0
0
0

.

%
0
2

%
7
6
6

.

%
0
0
0

.

%
7
6
6
4

.

%
3
3
3
4

.

%
0
0
0
3

.

%
3
3
3
3

.

%
3
3
3
1

.

%
0
0
0
1

.

%
3
3
3
2

.

%
0
0
0
2

.

%
3
3
3
2

.

%
7
6
6
1

.

%
7
6
6

.

%
0
0
0

.

Very poor Quite poor Not so good Quite good Very good Don't know

M
B

E
U
A
g
e
n
c
i
e
s

0.00%

5.88%

5.88%

13.33%

0.00%

6.67%

26.47%

61.76%

Excellent
Quite good
Not so good
Poor
Other

33.33%

46.67%

Satisfaction about the quality/price ratio for 
services provided (16 EU Agencies’ replies)

How satisfied are you 
with the new eCdT Client Portal? 

%
7
6
6
4

.

%
7
6
6
2

.

%
3
3
3
1

.

%
3
3
3
1

.

%
0
0
0

.

Very satisfied Quite satisfied

A little
dissatisfied

Very
dissatisfied

Don't know/
No opinion

Source:  Data  from  online  survey  undertaken  as  part  of  the 
study on the Translation Centre as the Linguistic Shared Service 
Provider for the EU Agencies and Bodies

77.27%

4.55%

18.18%

Very satisfied
Satisfied
Slightly dissatisfied

Source: eCdT Client Portal Survey conducted by the Centre

 
2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Participating in the EU Agencies’ Network

16

6 

PARTICIPATING

IN THE EU AGENCIES’ NETWORK

The Centre continued to participate actively in the EU Agencies’ Network, 

coordinated in 2017 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The 

Network met in different configurations throughout the year to discuss 

strategic matters and projects of common interest and to share information 

and best practices.

HEADS OF COMMUNICATION 
AND INFORMATION 
NETWORK (HCIN)
The  Centre  presented  its  new 
pricing  structure,  which  came 
into  effect  in  January  2017,  at 
the  HCIN  meeting  in  March, 
and  provided 
an  overview 
of  its  future  web  translation 
module  for  Drupal  7  based 
websites  at  the Web  Managers 
Network  meeting  in  October. 
The  Centre  participated  in  the 
EU60  campaign  with  articles 
on  its  website,  Facebook  posts 
as well as a contribution to the 
Agencies’  EU60  video  clip. The 
Centre  also  contributed  to  the 
Agencies’  message  house  that 
will be used in future EU agency 
communication 
campaigns. 
Finally,  the  Centre  provided  its 
input  to  the  new  EU Agencies’ 
video  prepared  by  EFSA  which 

was  subsequently  subtitled  by 
the Centre.

EUROPEAN OMBUDSMAN 
AWARD
In  March,  the  European  Union 
Intellectual 
Property  Office 
(EUIPO),  the  European  Agency 
for  Safety  and  Health  at Work 
(EU-OSHA)  and  the  Centre 
were  jointly  awarded  the  2017 
European  Ombudsman  Award 
for  Good Administration  in  the 
category  ‘Excellence  in  citizen/
customer 
services 
focused 
delivery’  for  their  collaboration 
on  a  project  which  facilitates 
the  management  of  multilingual 
websites.

EDITORS’ WORKSHOP
At  the  EU  Agencies  editors’ 
workshop  organised  by 
the 
European  Institute  for  Gender 

Equality  (EIGE)  in  Vilnius,  the 
Centre  shared  its  checklist  for 
editors  and  recommendations 
for  the  formatting  of  source 
texts with the participants from 
20 other EU agencies.

VIDEO PRODUCTION 
WORKSHOP
its 
The  Centre  presented 
subtitling  service  at  the  video 
production  workshop  hosted 
by  the  European  Union Agency 
for  Fundamental  Rights  (FRA) 
and  the  European  Monitoring 
Centre  for  Drugs  and  Drug 
Addiction (EMCDDA) in Vienna.

ICTAC MEETING
The  Centre  organised  the  30th 
meeting  of 
Information 
the 
Technology 
Communication 
Agency  Committee  (ICTAC)  in 
Luxembourg  at  the  beginning 
of  October.  The  participants 
discussed  possible 
synergies 
with the European Commission’s 
DG  DIGIT,  different  shared 
services projects, IT governance 
and  security  matters,  as  well  as 
steps towards a common cloud 
strategy.

ICTAC meeting

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Cooperating with external language service providers

17

7 

COOPERATING

WITH EXTERNAL LANGUAGE SERVICE PROVIDERS

The Centre’s business model is based on outsourcing translation to external 

service providers followed by a quality assurance process in-house prior to 

delivery to clients. The Centre regularly organises procurement procedures 

and has implemented solutions to collaborate efficiently with selected 

contractors.

line  with 

PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES
In 
Centre 
for  tenders 

undertook 
in  the 

the 

following 

language  field 

its  procurement  plan, 

the 
calls 
in  2017: 

GEN16

Translation 
services in the 
general field
TERM16 Terminology 

FIN17

LEG17

services 
Translation/
revision services 
in the financial 
and banking field
Translation/
revision services 
in the legal field

265 framework 
contracts signed

33 framework 
contracts signed
Launched in 2017

Launched in 2017

Video explaining the group assignment procedure

GROUP ASSIGNMENT
The Centre has been outsourcing documents since 
its establishment.  In line with the system in place 
until  30  September  2017,  the  Centre  contacted 
contractors  in  descending  order  in  the  various 
framework lists, giving each one of them the same 
preview  time. This  was  very  time  consuming  and 
limited  the  Centre’s  ability  to  respect  deadlines 
agreed  with  clients.  In  many  cases,  this  cascade 
system  meant  that  the  Centre  had  to  wait  for 
several  hours  -  or  even  days  -  before  being  able 
to outsource documents. On 1 October 2017, the 
Centre  introduced  a  new  outsourcing  procedure, 
called “Group Assignment”  which  speeds  up  the 
outsourcing process. In practice, the same preview 
time is simultaneously given to all contractors on 
the  same  framework  list. After  the  preview  time 
has passed, the job is automatically assigned to the 
highest  ranked  contractor  that  expressed  their 
availability,  regardless  of  the  chronological  order 
in which they replied. As a consequence of saving 
time  in  the  outsourcing  procedure,  the  selected 
contractors and the Centre’s in-house translators 
now have more time for linguistic activities, which 
is  very  positive  for  quality  purposes  and  for  on 
time delivery to clients.

AUTOMATION
In addition to the group assignment procedure, the 
Centre defined a series of business rules in eCdT 
to automatically outsource some language services. 
Once  again,  the  main  purpose  was  to  reduce  the 
time dedicated to the handling of requests and to 
increase the time available for the actual translation 
process.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Interacting with the global translation community

18

8 

INTERACTING

WITH THE GLOBAL TRANSLATION COMMUNITY

The Centre is involved in the activities of international fora for language 

professionals and receives visitors with a vested interest in translation 

management.

IAMLADP 

Meeting 

IAM

LADP

International 
The 
Annual 
on 
Language  Arrangements, 
Documentation 
and 
Publication 
(IAMLADP) 
is  the  biggest  network  of 
managers of international organisations employing 
conference  and  language  service  providers.   The 
Centre was represented at the annual meeting of 
the IAMLADP Universities Contact Group (UCG), 
which  was  held  at  the  European  Parliament  in 
Brussels  in April  2017. The  UCG  acts  as  a  liaison 
point  for  the  development  of  relations  and 
cooperation  between  international  organisations 
and  training  providers. The  participants  discussed 
the question of student traineeships in international 
organisations,  as  well  as  new  services  and  new 
skills  in  translation.  Translators  are  increasingly 
turning  into  “intercultural  linguistic  mediators” 
and  the  changes  in  business  models  entail  the 
need  to  develop  new  skills,  such  as  those  listed 
in  the  European  Master’s  in  Translation  (EMT) 
Competence Framework.

JOINT TRAINING VENTURE (JTV)
Under  the  auspices  of  IAMLADP,  the  Centre 
organised  in  December  2017  a  JTV  on  revision 
in  international  organisations.  The  head  of  the 
French  section  of  the  Organisation  for  Economic 
Cooperation  and  Development  (OECD)  shared 
his  expertise  with  translators  from  the  Centre 
and from other international organisations and EU 
institutions.  At  a  time  when  many  organisations 
it  was  a 
increasingly  resort  to  outsourcing, 

good  opportunity  to  remind  everyone  that  the 
revision of outsourced translations is a necessary 
investment  and  a  component  of  the  translation 
quality assurance process in any organisation.

JIAMCATT

(Joint 
Meeting 

Inter-
JIAMCATT 
on 
Agency 
C o m p u t e r - A s s i s t e d 
Translation 
and 
Terminology)  was  hosted 
International 
by 
Criminal  Court  in The  Hague  in  May  2017. The 
Centre  presented  its  subtitling  workflow  which 
interested  many  participants  with  EU  institutions 
and  agencies  regularly  posting  short  videos  on 
social  media  and  subtitling  them  to  reach  EU 
citizens in their own languages. 

the 

institutional 

VISITORS FROM SOUTH KOREA
In August  2017,  a  group  of  students  from  Sogang 
University  visited  the  Centre  as  part  of  their 
research  project  on 
translation 
and  on  the  benefits  of  centralised  terminology 
management. 
In  November,  a  delegation  from  the  Center  for 
Legal Translations  (CLT)  of  the  Korea  Legislation 
Research Institute (KLRI) also visited the Centre as 
part of their study tour of EU translation services.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Interacting with the global translation community

19

9 

ENGAGING

WITH THE ACADEMIC WORLD

The Centre maintains contacts with educational bodies in order to raise 

awareness about the translator’s profession in the EU context, create 

networks with academic personnel who can provide advice in specific areas, 

and promote the Centre and its work for the EU agencies.

UNIVERSITIES 
In February 2017, the Centre welcomed 30 law students 
from the University of Lorraine (France) as part of the 
regular community visits organised by the Jean Laurain-
Metz  UNESCO  Club,  which  helps  these  students 
discover national and European institutions.
In April, a translator from the Centre was invited by the 
Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) to share her 
experience in editing and revision with the students.
The Head of the Translation Department presented the 
activities of the Centre and its role in the ecosystem of 
EU decentralised agencies to several universities:
• 

In  March,  invited  by  the  University  of  Santiago 
de  Compostela,  he  attended  the  IVth  EMLex 
Colloquium  on  Lexicography,  taking  part  in  a 
panel  discussion  on  “Building  bridges  between 
lexicography and industry”;
In  April,  invited  by  the  Institute  of  the  Estonian 
Language, he attended the 16th Annual Conference 
of Applied Linguistics (EAAL) organised in Tallinn;
In  November,  he  gave  lectures  to  translation 
students at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

• 

• 

TRAINEES 
In  2017,  the  Centre  continued  to  regularly  receive 
trainees  from  the  European  Commission  and  the 
European  Parliament  as  part  of  its  second  mission, 
namely interinstitutional cooperation. Ten groups (290 
trainees) visited the Centre last year. 

OTHER EXTERNAL OUTREACH 
ACTIVITIES

Translation Centre staff at the Europe Day

The  2017  Europe  Day  was  dedicated  to  the  60th 
anniversary  of  the  Rome  Treaties.  Along  with 
colleagues  from  the  other  EU  translation  services, 
the Centre took part in the interinstitutional stand 
under the banner “Translating for Europe”.

BACK TO SCHOOL
Under  the  Maltese  Presidency  of  the  EU  (January 
to  June  2017),  the  Maltese  EU  office  in  Valletta 
had  called  on  Maltese  people  working  in  the 
EU  institutions  to  go  back  to  school  in  order  to 
spread the word about the EU. One of the Centre’s 
Maltese translators took this opportunity to give a 
presentation  to  72  fifteen-year-old  students  at  his 
former school in Malta.

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Corporate external communication activities

20

10 

EXTERNAL

COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES

In 2017, the Centre launched its new website. It offers a new look and feel, 

just like the new corporate brochure and the e-newsletter released in October. 

The Centre’s dynamic image is increasingly attracting the attention of those 

who are interested in translation matters.   

SERVICE CATALOGUE
In order to provide a comprehensive overview of 
the services the Centre offers to its clients, a small 
leaflet  was  created  outlining  the  specificities  and 
benefits of each service. 

e-NEWSLETTER “THE LANGUAGE HUB”
In  October, 
its  first 
the  Centre 
e-newsletter  which  is  accessible  under  the  news 
section on the public website.

launched 

THE CENTRE FEATURED IN NEWSPAPERS
The  Luxembourg  weekly  newspaper  Le  Jeudi 
dedicated  its  edition  of  16-22  March  2017  to 
translation 
included  an 
in  Luxembourg  and 
interview on the Centre.
The  Centre  was  also  featured  in  the  November-
December  release  of  the  ATA  Chronicle,  the 
flagship  publication  of  the  American Translators’ 
Association.

reviewed 

TOWARDS A NEW COMMUNICATION 
STRATEGY
The  Centre 
communication 
framework,  integrating  social  media  as  a  key 
channel  for  its  external  communication  activities. 
As from 2018, in addition to Facebook, the Centre 
is also present on LinkedIn and Twitter.

its 

THE CENTRE’S NEW WEBSITE
In April, the Centre launched its new public website. 
The  redesign  involved  a  shift  from  SharePoint  to 
Drupal 7 as well as a complete content refactoring. 
Since  reaching  out  to  EU  citizens  in  their  own 
language  is  one  of  the  Centre’s  key  values,  the 
new website can be browsed in the 24 EU official 
languages. 
From  the  public  website,  authorised  users  can 
access the restricted management board website, 
which  was  also  fully  redesigned  and  launched  in 
June. From the public website, the Centre’s clients 
can access the Client Portal, and external language 
service providers can access the Freelance Portal. 

FACEBOOK
With  over  6  600  fans,  the  Translation  Centre’s 
Facebook  page  attracts  a  wide  audience  of 
linguists, students, clients, the academic community 
and other EU staff. Job opportunities and calls for 
tenders are the most popular posts. 

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Annexes

21

65

CLIENT
PORTFOLIO

ACER .......................... Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators
BBI JU .......................... Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking
BEREC Office ............ Office of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications
Cedefop ...................... European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training
CEPOL ........................ European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training
Chafea ......................... Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency
CJEU ............................ Court of Justice of the European Union
Clean Sky 2 JU .......... Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking
CoR ............................. European Committee of the Regions
Council ....................... Council of the European Union
CPVO .......................... Community Plant Variety Office
DG EMPL ................... European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
DG JUST .................... European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers
DGT ............................ European Commission Directorate-General for Translation
EACEA ........................ Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency
EASA ........................... European Aviation Safety Agency
EASME ........................ Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
EASO .......................... European Asylum Support Office
EBA .............................. European Banking Authority
ECA ............................. European Court of Auditors
ECB ............................. European Central Bank
ECDC ......................... European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
ECHA .......................... European Chemicals Agency
ECSEL JU .................... Electronic Components and Systems for European Leadership Joint Undertaking
EDA ............................. European Defence Agency
EDPS ........................... European Data Protection Supervisor
EEA .............................. European Environment Agency
EEL2 ............................ European School Luxembourg II
EESC ............................ European Economic and Social Committee
EFCA ........................... European Fisheries Control Agency

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Annexes

22

EFSA ............................ European Food Safety Authority
EIB ................................ European Investment Bank
EIGE ............................ European Institute for Gender Equality
EIOPA ......................... European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority
EIT ............................... European Institute of Innovation and Technology
EMA ............................. European Medicines Agency
EMCDDA ................... European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
EMSA ........................... European Maritime Safety Agency
ENISA ......................... European Union Agency for Network and Information Security
EP – DG TRAD ......... European Parliament Directorate-General for Translation
ERA ............................. European Union Agency for Railways
ERCEA ........................ European Research Council Executive Agency
ESMA ........................... European Securities and Markets Authority
ETF .............................. European Training Foundation
EUIPO ......................... European Union Intellectual Property Office
eu-LISA ....................... European Agency for the Operational Management of large-scale IT Systems in the Area of 

Freedom, Security and Justice

EU-OSHA .................. European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
Eurofound .................. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
Eurojust ...................... European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit
Europol ....................... European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation
F4E JU ......................... Fusion for Energy Joint Undertaking
FCH 2 JU .................... Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking
FRA .............................. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
Frontex ....................... European Border and Coast Guard Agency
GSA ............................. European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency
IMI 2 JU....................... Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking
INEA............................ Innovation and Networks Executive Agency
MAOC (N) ................ Maritime Analysis and Operation Centre (Narcotics)
Ombudsman .............. European Ombudsman
OSGES ........................ Office of the Secretary-General of the European Schools
REA ............................. Research Executive Agency
S2R JU ......................... Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking
SatCen ........................ European Union Satellite Centre
SESAR JU .................... SESAR Joint Undertaking
SRB .............................. Single Resolution Board

2017 | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

Annexes

23

ORGANISATIONAL CHART

Management Board

Rytis Martikonis

Chairman

Director 

Máire Killoran

Director’s Assistant

Secretariat

Translation 

Department

Translation Support 

Department

Administration 

Department

IT Department

External Relations 

Workflow Management 

and Communication Section

Section

Accounting Officer

Project 

Management Office

Finno-Ugric, Baltic and 

Slavonic 1 Language Group

Business Development 

and Workflow Support 

Section

Budgetary and Strategic 

Planning Section

Development Section

Germanic and Slavonic 2 

Interinstitutional IATE 

Language Group

Group

Legal Affairs Section

Service Desk Section

Romance 

and Mediterranean Language 

Group

Human Resources Section

IT Infrastructure Section

Facilities 

and Security Group

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