On 22 April 2021, the Translation Centre hosted its 6th annual Translation Contact Network (TCN) meeting. A total of 46 representatives from 37 EU Agencies, Joint Undertakings and Institutions attended this half-day event, which was held online due to the pandemic.

Participants were welcomed by the Centre’s acting Director, Benoît Vitale, who took the opportunity to inform the group about the successful completion of the Translation Centre’s comprehensive 2-year transformation process. This had been undertaken in close cooperation with colleagues from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and he thanked them warmly once more for their extraordinary efforts and support.

Mr Vitale also highlighted the fact that the positive outcomes of the transformation process had coincided with the Centre’s 25th anniversary and he showed participants the video produced to mark this event. It is available in all 24 EU languages and describes the Centre’s 25 years of existence through the eyes of its different directors.

Given that the transformation process has resulted in many tangible benefits for all the Centre’s clients, especially new added-value services and optimised tools and workflows, much of the TCN meeting was dedicated to presenting the main achievements of relevance to clients.

The Head of the Translation Support Department gave the first presentation of the day. He provided participants with an overview of the new services and tools that had been launched recently and those still in the pipeline for the current year.

Next, a member of the Project Management Office explained the rationale behind and the functioning of the Centre’s new feedback workflow. This is based on what the Centre has termed the ‘CVR’ – the Corrected Version Request.

After the break, the Head of the Translation Department guided participants through the particular characteristics of machine translation and the different types of post-editing used by the Centre to make the outcome of machine translation fit for purpose.

A member of the Budget and Finance Group then presented new features on the Centre’s Client Portal. These help clients to plan their translation budget and track their budget consumption.

Finally, the Head of External Relations and Communications gave the group a summary of the Centre’s recent client satisfaction survey. This will be repeated annually from now on and will facilitate better client management by the Centre.

Each presentation was followed by a round of questions and answers which gave rise to lively exchanges between participants and the Centre’s representatives.

All in all, it was a very fruitful event which generated quite a number of ideas for communications about the Centre’s services and potential future developments to meet specific client needs.