Translation Centre For the Bodies of the EU

The Translation Department is the Translation Centre’s largest department, accounting for more than half of the Centre’s staff. It is made up of three Language Sections and the External Relations and Communication Section.

External Relations and Communication Section

The External Relations and Communication Section liaises with the Centre’s clients to identify their needs and measure satisfaction levels. This is achieved through regular client visits, periodic surveys and client feedback.

In cooperation with clients, the Section arranges training sessions, workshops and presentations for the Centre’s translators in order to broaden their knowledge of the clients’ highly specialised fields of activity and procedures. Similarly, the Section organises presentations to enable clients to further understand the Centre’s role and services.

The Section is also in charge of internal and external communications. It disseminates information and news via the Centre’s intranet, website, social media channels and Client Portal. The Section prepares and coordinates targeted publications, such as the Highlights of the Year report, and a number of brochures and newsletters. It also runs various events to promote multilingualism.

The translators (Language Sections)

Each Language Section is subdivided into translation teams, one for each official language of the EU. The size of each team varies according to the translation workload into each target language. All translators translate into their mother tongue; they have varied academic backgrounds, mostly linguistically-oriented.

Translators are offered training throughout their professional life at the Centre, both in terms of language learning (developing existing language skills and acquiring new languages) and client‑specific activities.

They translate and revise documents as well as trade marks. They also subtitle videos, compile glossaries and contribute to the IATE interinstitutional term base.

As linguists, in-house translators guarantee the language quality of the translations delivered. This is true of both texts translated in-house and texts that are outsourced to specialised external language service providers.

Through its business model based on outsourcing and internal quality control, the Centre has become a reference point for all aspects of the revision process.

Like any other smooth-running organisation, the Translation Centre has a single entity at the hub of operations that functions as its driving force. This is the role of the Translation Support Department.

This Department consists of the Workflow Management Section, the Business Development and Workflow Support Section and the Interinstitutional IATE Group.

Workflow Management Section

The Workflow Management Section is responsible for the orderly processing of all language service requests at the Centre, from receipt of the request through to delivery of the final product. The Centre works largely with framework contracts.
The members of the Section are responsible for:

• receiving, analysing and validating requests, where necessary by negotiation with clients;
• assigning translation, revision, editing and terminology jobs to in-house and freelance translators;
• ensuring that the files on which translators have to work are editable and that documents are correctly formatted prior to their delivery to the client;
• using language technology tools to treat, as far as possible, incoming files;
• ensuring that all jobs are returned to the requestor by the agreed deadline and in the required form;
• compiling the information used to invoice the services provided.

The Section provides linguistic and technical support to translators throughout the translation workflow. Furthermore, it provides training courses in the various fields it covers (e.g. use of technology).

Business Development and Workflow Support Section

The Business Development and Workflow Support Section consists of several sub-components:

• The Business Development capacity, whose aim is to monitor trends and innovations related to the linguistic services business (tools, working methods and new services) and to analyse how the Centre can best help its clients meet their communication needs;
• The Corpus and Terminology Management Team, which supplies and maintains specialised language resources and tools in the field of terminology, reference documentation, translation memories and machine translation;
• The EU Trade Marks and Designs Team, which manages the entire workflow for the translation of EU trade marks and designs;

Interinstitutional IATE Group

The Interinstitutional IATE Group and the EurTerm (interinstitutional collaborative platform for terminologists) coordinator are hosted by the Centre on behalf of the IATE project partners. 

The Administration Department provides administrative and technical support in the areas of human resources (HR), budgetary, strategic planning, legal affairs, calls for tenders, facilities and security.

Finance Group

The Finance Group ensures that the Centre’s financial management functions properly and complies with all applicable rules and regulations. It coordinates the establishment and follow-up of the Centre’s budget and maintains close contact with the Centre’s clients to incorporate their budgetary forecasts into the Centre’s revenue budget. Another important task is the ex ante and ex post verification of financial transactions.

Strategic Planning Section

The Strategic Planning Section prepares and implements the Centre’s Multi-Annual Strategy and Multi-Annual Work Programmes, and coordinates the preparation of the Annual Activity Report. Furthermore, it also coordinates and monitors the implementation of risk management and internal control.

Legal Affairs Section

Facilities and Security Section

The Facilities and Security Section ensures that the Centre’s staff, data, buildings and equipment are adequately protected against any security risks and that health and safety rules are abided by. The Group manages movable and immovable property and is responsible for coordinating business continuity in the rare event of major disruption to the Centre’s operations. In addition, the Group promotes environmentally friendly measures at the Centre and raises staff awareness about waste management.

Human Resources Section

The Human Resources Section develops, coordinates and implements HR policies, and provides advice and guidelines to the Centre’s management and staff on HR matters. In particular, its role is linked to the selection, recruitment and career development of staff and trainees (training, skills management, appraisal and promotion). The Section is also in charge of budgetary and financial matters relating to staff expenditure.

State-of-the-art computer applications and equipment are essential for the Centre’s day-to-day work. The IT Department comprises the following three Sections: Service Desk, IT Infrastructure and Development.

Development Section

The Development Section designs, creates and maintains IT applications and databases as required for the running of the Centre.

It also manages non-internal IT solutions and services acquired from external providers, such as those supplied by other institutions or private companies, and contributes to researching, integrating and implementing them in the Centre’s IT environment.

Service Desk Section

The Service Desk Section is the single point of contact for both in-house and external users in dealing with all kinds of issues and information requests relating to the various areas of IT: hardware, software, telecommunications and infrastructure. It handles all personal hardware, software and business solutions to provide a consistent and powerful IT architecture at each workstation.

IT Infrastructure Section

The IT Infrastructure Section supplies and maintains the centralised IT infrastructures that enable the Centre to meet its objectives, and ensures that these infrastructures are resilient by means of a Continuity and Recovery Plan. It oversees the availability and security of data relating to the Centre and data provided by clients and partners, and manages the data centres and cloud services that accommodate the storage and processing capacity required for the Centre’s operations. This Section carries out all its activities in close collaboration with the Data Protection Officer, the Security Officer and the Local Informatics Security Officer.