ELEN is delighted to announce the launch of FOSTERLANG, or to use the full title, “Fostering linguistic capital: a roadmap for reversing the diversity crisis and activating societal benefits in Europe”, the new three-million-euro flagship European project aiming to boost minoritised languages and foster Europe’s linguistic capital, which launched on May 1st 2025.
The project, financed by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme, aims to have a transformative effect on how the linguistic and human capital of speakers of minoritised and migrant languages are recognised, valued and strengthened for the benefit of their communities and Europe as a whole.
The project consortium comprises 14 institutional partners and 48 language communities who combine expertise in engaged and decolonial linguistics, language policy, language reclamation, social anthropology, multilingual education and pedagogy, language planning, and technological innovation. The FOSTERLANG project will involve comparative studies, cross-case developments and pilot implementations of practical solutions.
One of the major outcomes will be a Linguistic Capital Road Map which will set out a substantive set of recommendations for the short, medium, and long-term on effective and meaningful strategies for fostering Europe’s linguistic capital and safeguarding minoritised languages.
Speaking to the media project co-ordinator Prof. Justyna Olko (University of Warsaw) said: “We are thrilled by the opportunities generated by this collaborative project uniting academic and social partners. We will be working together to foster linguistic diversity and the self-empowerment of language communities, enhancing their potential for Europe’s wellbeing and socio-cultural prosperity.”
ELEN Secretary-General Davyth Hicks said that: “We’re very excited to get to work on Fosterlang and delighted to have the support from Horizon Europe. Its set to be a key flagship European project that will guide EU language policies for years to come. As Europe’s main organization representing European endangered and minoritized languages its vital that we have accurate, cutting-edge research to help us be more effective in campaigning for the protection of our languages.
“With Fosterlang we will be working with a world-beating team of language experts with a wide range of expertise. For us its important that we have this alliance between civil society and academia, especially in terms of getting the key messages of the project to our language communities at the grass-roots level.
“One of the major project outcomes will be the Linguistic Capital Roadmap and accompanying recommendations which we will be presenting to the EU, UN, Council of Europe, OSCE, UNESCO and Governments at the end of the project. Many of our languages are severely endangered and we will be urging all institutions and governments to adopt our proposed measures as a matter of urgency.”
The project will focus on fostering linguistic capital not only from the perspective of protecting language diversity, but also showcasing how speakers of contested languages can enhance economic, demographic, social and health-related components of human capital.
The three-year project will be led by the University of Warsaw in partnership with the European Language Equality Network (ELEN), along with Linguapax International, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, University of Oslo, University of the Highlands and Islands, Prifysgol Cymru Y Drindod Dewi Sant, Dublin City University, and Pädagogische Hochschule Kärnten. They will be joined by NGOs representing Kashubian, Lemko, and Wymysorys (Naja Skola, Association Ruska Bursa, and Association Wilamowianie), ELEN member organisations and other collaborating language communities. (Fosterlang 2025)