Mission Statement

The Virtual Institute is designed to support skill and knowledge acquisition in all domains of interpreting: conference interpreting, interpreting in zones of crisis and war, sign language interpreting, training for interpreter trainers, and doctoral research.

In collaboration with the Geneva-based international organizations and the European institutions who employ our graduates as professional interpreters, we regularly analyze, research and reshape the profession of interpreting.

Values

Learning and research are shaped by a set of interrelated values:

• High ethical standards in teaching and research;
• Equipping interpreters with solid skills to build sound careers;
• Training adaptive experts capable of pursuing a variety of professional development opportunities;
• Interdisciplinary research linking the domain of interpreting with other domains such as psychology, the cognitive neurosciences or ethics;
• Planning and providing for technology-enabled learning opportunities that meet the needs of students and staff;
• Using constructivist pedagogy for training interpreter and interpreter educators.

Vision

As the oldest university-level training program for conference interpreters we continue to lead by bridging the professional and the educational world of interpreting through innovative pedagogical approaches and the integration of learning and technology. The profession faces challenges on a scale hitherto not seen (China, Africa) and will have to meet these through new techno-pedagogical solutions to ensure effective communication. We aim to build communities of practice for learners, trainers and researchers who are faced with similar issues, to research and support their needs through the Virtual Institute as interactive portal and through LiveEti as our Open Courseware learning portal.

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Last modified: Fri Mar 12th, 2010